How to play skins

1. Everyone puts the same amount into the pot before the round. Divide the pot by 18 to get the value of one hole. Four players at $18 each make a $72 pot, so each hole is worth $4.
2. Decide whether the game is gross or net. In net skins each player takes their full course handicap in strokes, one per hole on the hardest holes by stroke index (two per hole on the hardest holes for a course handicap above 18).
3. On each hole, the player with the lowest score wins the skin, but only if nobody else matches it. A tie for low wins nothing. This is often called "one tie, all tie": it does not matter how the other players scored.
4. With carryovers, a tied hole's value moves to the next hole. The next outright winner takes that hole plus everything that carried into it.
5. Decide in advance what happens if the 18th hole ties while value is still carrying. The options are covered below.
6. At the end, each player is paid the number of holes they won multiplied by the value of one hole.

Al, Ben, Cal and Dev each put $18 into a net skins game with carryovers, so the pot is $72 and each hole is worth $4. The scores below are net scores, after handicap strokes.

The 18th tied with one hole already carrying, so two holes' worth ($8) was still unclaimed at the end. Under the split rule, Al and Ben, the two players tied for low on the 18th, take one hole's worth each.

The payouts add up to the $72 pot, and the holes add up to 18. That check is the quickest way to catch a counting mistake. The skins calculator does the same arithmetic for any number of players.

Many clubs run skins without carryovers, usually called a skins pool. A tied hole is simply dead. After the round, the whole pot is divided by the number of skins won, so the value of a skin is not known until everyone has finished.

With the same scores as above, only 8 holes were won outright (holes 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14 and 16). The $72 pot divided by 8 skins is $9 a skin. Each player won exactly 2, so each collects $18 and everyone breaks even. With carryovers, Ben won $6 and Al lost $6 on identical scores, because Ben's wins came on holes that had value carrying into them.

Carryovers reward the player who breaks a run of ties, which makes the late holes tense. A pool spreads the money more evenly and suits large fields, where ties are common and most holes would carry.

How Wedge scores it: carryovers are on by default. Turn them off and Wedge runs a pool: tied holes are dead and the pot is shared across the skins won, with the value per skin shown as skins fall.

If the 18th hole ties while value is carrying, there is no next hole to take it. Groups handle this in one of three ways:

• Split among the players tied for low on the 18th. This is what the worked example uses, and it is Wedge's default.
• Return it to the field. The unclaimed money goes back evenly to everyone who played, which Wedge does when the split option is off.
• Play off. The tied players go back to a hole and the carry goes to whoever wins it. This is a common variation that Wedge does not score.

Any other money nobody won, such as a skins pool where every hole tied, also goes back evenly to the players who played for it.

• Gross or net. Gross skins favor the best player in the group. Net skins give everyone a chance, and Wedge scores skins net by default using each player's full course handicap.
• A fixed amount per hole. Instead of a pot, each player owes the winner a set amount per skin, such as $1 a skin from each of the other three players. With four players that works out the same as a $4-a-hole pot, except that losing players pay the winners directly.
• Validation. In this variation a skin only counts if the winner also makes par or better on the next hole. It is not part of Wedge's scoring.
• Skins over several days. On a golf trip, skins can be one game for the whole trip or a new game each day. As one game over three days with eight players at $54 each, the $432 pot covers 54 holes, so each hole is worth $8, and a tie on the last hole of day one carries to the first hole of day two.

• Paying ties. A tie for low wins nothing, even when everyone else made a double bogey. Only a single low score wins.
• Settling too early. When several groups play the same skins game, a hole cannot be decided until every player has finished it. A birdie in the first group can still be tied by the last group.
• A player who leaves early. They are out of the holes they did not play, and those holes are decided among the players who finished them. Their buy-in stays in the pot.
• Net strokes on the wrong holes. Strokes go on holes by stroke index, the hole handicap row on the scorecard, not by par. A course handicap of 10 gets one stroke on the holes ranked 1 through 10.
• Plus handicaps. In Wedge's skins scoring a plus handicap plays off zero rather than giving strokes back. If your group gives strokes back, agree on it first.
• Counting the carry twice. The winning hole is worth itself plus what carried in. Three straight ties followed by a win is 4 holes' worth, not 3.