Golf Card Game Rules

Golf is a card game where, just like the sport, the lowest score wins. Each player has a small grid of cards, mostly face down. You draw and swap cards to bring your total down, and you look for pairs, which cancel out. A game is nine deals, or “holes”. It is quick to learn and works for two or more players. It is also called Polish Polka or Polish Poker; the four-card version is sometimes known as Turtle and the nine-card version as Crazy Nines. It has nothing to do with Golf solitaire. This guide covers the Golf card game rules for the standard six-card game, the scoring, and the four-, eight- and nine-card versions, plus what a simulation says about strategy.

Golf Card Game Rules at a Glance

How to Play Six-Card Golf

1. Deal six cards each, face down. Each player lays them out in two rows of three without looking at them, then turns any two face up.
2. Start the discard pile. Put the rest of the pack face down as the stock and turn its top card face up beside it.
3. Take a card. Starting on the dealer’s left, each player takes either the top card of the discard pile or the top card of the stock.
4. Swap or throw away. Use the card to replace any card in your layout, face up or face down, and put the replaced card face up on the discard pile. The new card goes in face up. A card taken from the discard pile must be swapped in. A card drawn from the stock can simply be discarded if you don’t want it.
5. Build pairs. Two cards of the same rank in the same column score nothing, so a high card can be cancelled out by matching it.
6. End the hole. As soon as one player has all six cards face up, the hole ends. In many games every other player gets one last turn first. Then everyone turns up their remaining cards and scores.
7. Play nine holes. Keep a running total. After nine deals, the player with the lowest total wins. For a longer game, play 18.

Golf Card Game Scoring

The pairing rule applies even to 2s: a pair of 2s in one column scores 0, not −4. A 2 is better left on its own, or paired with a card that would otherwise cost you points.

Other Versions: 4, 8 and 9 Cards

Four-card Golf

Each player gets four cards in a square and may look at the two nearest cards once, before play starts. After that you have to remember them. On your turn, draw a card and either swap it for one of your four, without looking at them first, or discard it. Instead of drawing you can knock if you think you have the lowest score. Everyone else then has one more turn and the cards are turned up. Many groups add a penalty if the knocker does not have the lowest score, such as 10 points.

Eight-card Golf

Eight cards are laid out four wide and two high, usually with two packs and four Jokers. On your first turn you turn one column face up. Jokers score −5, a pair in a column scores 0, and two equal pairs in any two columns score −10.

Nine-card Golf

Also called Crazy Nines. Each player has nine cards in a 3×3 square and turns three of them face up to start (some groups turn two). A pair no longer cancels: you need three of a kind in a column for a column to score 0. Use two or more packs for four or more players. When any player’s cards are all face up, the hole ends at once. Popular extras: rows and diagonals of three also score 0, 2s score +2 and Jokers −2, and a square of four equal cards scores −25.

House Rules

Golf Strategy

• Know the average. An unseen card from a full pack is worth 5.5 points on average. Any face-up card worth 6 or more is worse than that, so it is the first thing to replace.
• Build pairs. Pairing a 10 with a 10 saves 20 points in one move. Watch the discard pile for cards that match your face-up cards.
• Keep Kings and 2s. A King costs nothing and a 2 is worth −2. Two 2s in one column score only 0, so a 2 is worth more on its own.
• Don’t feed the next player. The card you throw away is the next player’s first choice, so avoid discarding a card they can pair.
• Time the finish. End the hole when your total is low and the other players still have high cards showing.

Pairs are the key. In 20,000 simulated four-player holes, a player who built column pairs won 46% of holes against three players who only went for low cards, against a fair share of 25%. They averaged 9.2 points a hole to the others’ 14.5. Turn it round, and a player ignoring pairs against three who built them won just 11%. With two players, building pairs won 71% of holes.

Golf Card Game Odds

• A typical hole. With everyone playing well, players averaged about 9.5 points a hole with four players and 6.8 with two. A four-player hole took about 26 turns in all.
• Breaking par. A score of 0 or less came up 10% of the time with four players.
• Going out first. The player who turned up their last card had the lowest score 55% of the time with four players. Finishing first is no guarantee, because everyone else still gets a last turn.

More Card Games

If you like Golf, try Spades, Crazy Eights, Gin Rummy, Go Fish and Shut the Box, another game where the lowest score wins.

For two players who like to count: Cribbage, the game of fifteen-two and a pair is four.

Another face-down layout game: Trash (also called Garbage), a race to turn up Ace to 10 in order.

Golf card game: frequently asked questions