While a standard golf match requires you to add up all your strokes and penalties for each hole to determine the winner with the lowest score, a skins game allows you to award different values for each hole. This makes it popular for new golfers or even experienced golfers having a bad day on the links
Here’s how you might set up a skins game:
- Set a point value for every hole on the course. The front nine could be worth 10 points each, the back nine worth 20, and hole 18 worth 50. You could also keep the value even for each hole, or award extra points for more difficult holes. By adding the extra points to the back nine you can keep things interesting.
- Decide what the wager will be. Choose to award the pot to the player with the most points or to divide it between each person based on how many points they got.
- The golfer who gets the lowest score on a hole wins the points (or “skin”) for that hole. If two or more golfers tie for lowest score, you must add the skin to the next hole. For instance, let’s say holes 5-7 are each worth ten points, but two golfers tie on holes 5 and 6. Hole 7 is now worth 30 points, and the winner is awarded all the points even if he or she wasn’t part of either tie.
- In case there’s a tie on the 18th hole, the skins game will enter sudden-death. Everyone who tied for the win will play extra holes until the one player wins the last skin.
- Add up all the skins and points to determine the winner or winners and then award the pot accordingly.
Skins games ignore handicaps, so you’ll want to make sure everyone taking part is around the same skill level. After all, if you want to see a come-from-behind victory, you’ll first have to make sure it’s possible for anyone to beat the score leader.
Playing for skins instead of for the lowest score can be a fun way to try something new on the golf course and add a little excitement to the last few holes no matter how badly a golfer plays at the start. We’ll discuss more golf rules in a future Westlake Golf post.