Golf skins calculator

Skins is an individual game for two or more players. Each hole is a separate prize, called a skin, and it goes to the one player who makes the lowest score on that hole. Nobody needs to beat the whole field over 18 holes; a single birdie on the right hole can win more than a steady round.

• Lowest score wins. The skin goes to a player only when nobody else matches their score on that hole.
• One tie, all tie. If two or more players tie for the low score, nobody wins the hole, even if the rest of the group scored worse.
• Holes settle in order. A hole settles once every player has a score on it, and the calculator waits for every score on a hole before it moves to the next one.
• Scores are entered as played. In a net game the calculator takes off each player's handicap strokes for you.

With carryovers, a tied hole does not lose its money. The hole's value moves to the next hole, and the next skin won collects every hole that carried into it. Carryovers are on by default in Wedge because they keep every hole's money in play.

On hole 1, Chris and Dan scored worse than the tie, but that does not help them: the tie for low is what carries the hole. A skin that collects carried holes counts each of them, so Ben's birdie on hole 3 is worth three holes.

The calculator takes the stake per hole, per player. A "$1 skins game" with four players means each player puts $1 on every hole, so each hole is worth $4. Over 18 holes each player puts in $18 and the pot is $72. The pot is always the stake times the number of players times the number of holes.

With carryovers, every hole is worth an equal slice of the pot (the pot divided by the number of holes), and a skin pays its own hole plus every hole it carried. Each player's result is what they won minus what they put in.

The skins add up to 18 holes and the money won adds up to the $72 pot, so the net column always sums to zero. To settle, the players who are down pay the players who are up.

A tie on the final hole leaves nowhere for the carried money to go. Wedge offers two rules, and the calculator has both:

• The tied players split it (Wedge's default). The players tied for the low score on the last hole split everything still carrying, including the last hole itself.
• Give it back. Everything still carrying goes back evenly to every player in the game.

For example, holes 16 and 17 tie, so $8 carries to the 18th, which adds its own $4 for $12 on the hole. Ben and Dan tie for the low score with 4s. Under the split rule, Ben and Dan get $6 each. Under the give-back rule, each of the four players gets $3. Some groups settle a last-hole tie with a playoff or a chip-off instead.

Many clubs run skins without carryovers. A tied hole is dead: nobody wins it and its money does not move. The pot is then shared across the skins that were won, so a skin's value is the pot divided by the number of skins won.

With the same $72 pot, if six skins are won and the other 12 holes are tied, each skin is worth $72 divided by 6, or $12. If only two skins are won, each one is worth $36. If nobody wins a skin all day, the whole pot goes back evenly, $18 to each of the four players.

Gross skins compare the scores as played, which favors the better players. Net skins take each player's handicap strokes off first, so a higher handicap can win a hole with a bogey that becomes a net par.

The calculator's net mode uses each player's full course handicap and the hole's stroke index from the scorecard (the handicap row, with 1 for the hardest hole). On 18 holes, a course handicap of 10 gets one stroke on the holes indexed 1 to 10. A course handicap of 22 gets one stroke on every hole and a second stroke on the holes indexed 1 to 4. On nine holes, enter the nine-hole course handicap; the strokes go on the hardest holes of that nine, ranked by their index. A plus handicap plays off zero.

Some groups play net skins off a reduced allowance, such as a percentage of each handicap. To do that here, enter the reduced handicaps. You can work out course handicaps with the course handicap calculator.