In a skins game every hole is a prize of its own. You win a hole’s skin when you alone have the lowest score on it. If two or more of you tie for the lowest score, nobody wins the hole, and in most games its skin carries over, so the next outright winner takes both. At the end of the round you count your skins, and the money your group put in is split by the skins each of you won.
The classic game is three or four players in one group. You can also play it across a whole field, comparing every score on a hole from every group, so a skin goes to the one best score on the course.
How do you win a skin?
Compare everyone’s score on the hole. If one player has the lowest score, that player wins the skin. If the lowest score is shared, the hole is halved and no skin is won; some golfers call that “no blood”.
Only the lowest score matters, not how good it is. A bogey can win a skin when everyone else makes double bogey, and a birdie wins nothing if someone else birdies the hole too.
With carryovers or without
Your group decides what happens to a halved hole’s skin. With carryovers, the skin moves to the next hole, and each further tie adds one more, so after three halved holes in a row the fourth is worth four skins. Without carryovers, a halved hole’s skin is simply gone and every hole is worth one. Carryovers build bigger prizes late in the round; playing without them spreads the skins more evenly.
A worked example: nine holes, four players
These numbers are an example. Four golfers, A to D, each put in $10, so the pot is $40, and tied holes carry over.
Player C wins hole 4 outright and collects three skins: the hole’s own skin plus the two carried from the halved holes 2 and 3. Hole 9 is halved as well, and because it’s the last hole, its skin has nowhere to go. That leaves eight skins won: A has 2, B has 1, C has 3 and D has 2.
How do you split the money?
Groups pay out in one of two ways, so agree which one before anyone tees off.
Share the pot by skins won
Divide the pot by the number of skins won, and that’s what each skin is worth. In the example, $40 over eight skins makes each skin worth $5: A gets $10, B gets $5, C gets $15 and D gets $10. All the money goes back out however many holes are halved. A and D get their entry back, C finishes $5 ahead and B finishes $5 down.
A set amount per hole
Each hole is worth a fixed amount, and a carried skin brings its money with it. Say each hole is worth $4, so each of the four players puts in $9 for $36 over nine holes. A wins $8, B wins $4, C wins $12 and D wins $8, which comes to $32. The $4 for the halved last hole wasn’t won, so it’s handled by your rule for the last hole below.
A set amount works best with a round number per hole. An $80 pot over 18 holes makes each hole $4.44, which is one reason many groups share the pot instead. In a small group that settles up hole by hole, the winner of a skin can instead collect the stake from each of the others, so in a four-ball every skin won is worth three stakes.
When the last hole is halved
A tie on the 18th, or on the 9th in a nine-hole game, leaves skins with no next hole to carry to, so write your rule down before you play. You can leave them unwon and give their money to the players who won at least one skin, split it evenly among the players who tied on the last hole, or play off on a hole you name, often the 1st or the 18th. Some groups simply hand the money back to everyone in equal shares.
The payout calculator works out both ways of paying, with or without carryovers, and shows what was paid, what’s left over and what nobody won.
Should you play gross, net or hybrid skins?
Gross skins compare the strokes you actually took, with no handicaps. That suits a group of similar golfers, but in a mixed group the lower handicaps tend to win most of the skins.
Net skins give you strokes on the holes where your handicap falls. The handicap row on the scorecard ranks the holes from 1, the hardest, to 18, the easiest, and a 12-handicap gets one stroke on each hole ranked 1 to 12. On the hole ranked 5, a scratch golfer who makes 4 and a 12-handicap who makes 5 both score a net 4, so the skin carries.
Many groups play off the lowest handicap in the game: the best golfer plays off zero and everyone else gets the difference. With handicaps of 8, 16 and 28, the 16 gets one stroke on the eight hardest holes, and the 28 gets 20 strokes, two on the two hardest holes and one on every other hole. Some groups also play at a percentage of each handicap, or give no strokes on par 3s.
Hybrid skins count net scores but let gross trump net: when two players tie on net, the one who took fewer actual strokes wins the skin, and when they tie on gross, the better net score wins it.
Variations your group can add
Some groups only let a birdie or better win a skin, so a par can’t take one, which makes for bigger carryovers. Others say a skin only counts when the winner makes net par or better, and some double a skin won with a birdie and triple one won with an eagle.
For team skins, play in pairs and count each team’s better ball on every hole. If team A makes 4 and 5 and team B makes 4 and 6, both teams score 4 and the skin carries.
How do you run skins in a weekly game or league?
In a regular game, skins usually run as a side pot that players choose to join. You can collect from whoever plays that week, so 12 players at $5 make a $60 pot and 15 make $75. Or members pay for the season up front, for example $5 a week for 20 weeks, $100 each, and the weekly pot stays the same whoever turns up.
With a big field, compare every score on each hole across all the groups. The more players there are, the more often holes are halved, so decide on carryovers and net strokes before the first tee. Our golf games for large groups has more formats that put everyone on one leaderboard.
Skins sit happily alongside a quota game: skins are decided on strokes, hole by hole, while your quota counts points over the round, so a skin never changes anyone’s quota. Write your skins rules into the rules sheet when you start a golf league, and read how to run a golf points game for the rest of the organizer’s week.
Questions
How many players do you need for skins?
Three or four in one group is the classic game. It works with any number of players once you compare every score on each hole, as long as the money and the tie rules are agreed first.
How much is a skin worth?
A skin is worth whatever your group agrees. With a shared pot, a skin is worth the pot divided by the skins won, so you only know its value at the end. With a set amount per hole, you know what each hole is worth before you tee off.
Can a bogey win a skin?
Yes, unless your group says otherwise, because a skin goes to the lowest score on the hole, whatever it is. If you want every skin to be earned, add a rule that only net par or better, or only a birdie, can win one.
What’s the difference between skins and a quota game?
In skins you play each hole for its own prize against everyone else’s score. In a quota game you add up your points over the round and play against your own target, the quota you work out from your handicap or recent rounds. You can play both in the same round.