One rabbit, three golfers, and nobody holding it at the start. Win a hole outright and you catch it. Get beaten on a hole and it starts slipping away. Hold it on the last green of the match and the match is yours.
THE SHORT ANSWER
The rabbit is loose until somebody wins a hole outright. That golfer catches it and every further hole they win puts them another leg clear. Every hole an opponent wins takes a leg back, and at level the rabbit is loose again for all three. Whoever is holding it on the last hole of the match wins that match’s share of the pot.
FOUR HOLES, PAUL · DAVE · SAM
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loose
1 leg
2 legs
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H1
—
H1
playing
H1
Paul
H2
—
H2
playing
H2
Paul
H3
—
H3
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H3
Sam
H4
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H4
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Dave
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Two legs clear after two holes, then two holes lost and the rabbit is back where it started. Nobody holds it, and nobody is owed anything yet.
3
golfers
1
rabbit at a time
3×6
holes a match, by default
½
for a one-hole rabbit
The rules
Rabbit is a three-golfer game and the only thing being played for is possession. There are no teams and no partners. On the first tee the rabbit is loose, which means it belongs to nobody and everybody is chasing it.
To catch it you have to win a hole outright — low score on your own, no ties. Once you have it, the holes you win push you further clear and the holes an opponent wins pull you back. Level and it is loose again for all three of you.
1
Catch it
Win a hole outright and the rabbit is yours. Halved holes leave it exactly where it was.
2
Run with it
Each hole you win adds a leg to your lead. Each hole an opponent wins takes one off.
3
Hold it at the end
The last hole of the match is the one that counts. Whoever has it then wins that match’s share of the pot.
Why the last hole is worth so much
Nothing is banked until the match ends.
A golfer can hold the rabbit for five holes of a six-hole match, lose it on the sixth green, and collect nothing. That is the format working as intended: the rabbit is not a points total being accumulated, it is an object somebody is carrying, and the only question at the end is who is carrying it.
A loose rabbit on the last green pays nobody by default — the match is void. The alternative is to carry that stake into the next match, which is a house rule worth settling first.
How a hole resolves
Three scores go in and only one question is being asked: did somebody win the hole on their own?
1
Apply strokes off the low index. Everyone plays off the low golfer and the field gets the difference, allocated to the hardest holes.
2
Look for an outright low score. One golfer lower than both others wins the hole. Two golfers tied at the front and the hole does nothing at all.
3
Move the rabbit. Loose, and the winner catches it. Held by the winner, and the lead grows a leg. Held by somebody else, and the lead shrinks by one — at zero it is loose again.
4
If this was the last hole of the match, settle it. The holder wins that match’s share. A loose rabbit means nobody does.
A tie at the front is not a win
This is the rule most groups get wrong on the first hole. If two golfers make net 4 and the third makes 5, nobody has won the hole — the rabbit does not move, and if it was loose it stays loose. In a three-ball that happens often enough that a rabbit can run untouched for several holes.
Legs, and losing them
There are two ways to run this, and they produce completely different games. Pick one before the first tee shot.
Accumulate a lead
DEFAULT
Every hole the holder wins is another leg clear; every hole an opponent wins is one back. The rabbit is only lost when the lead reaches zero. Getting two legs ahead genuinely means something — the field has to beat you twice to take it back, and the hole they win in between does nothing.
Stop after one
The rabbit is set loose the first time the holder is beaten on a hole, however far ahead they were. Faster and more volatile: a rabbit rarely survives more than two or three holes, and the last green usually decides it.
THE FOUR HOLES AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE
Paul wins the first two holes, catches the rabbit and goes two legs clear. Sam wins the third and Dave wins the fourth — two different opponents, two legs off — and the rabbit is loose again with nobody having gained anything. The chasers do not have to be the same golfer. The field is not a team, but against a rabbit that is running, it behaves like one.
Matches and the pot
A round of Rabbit is normally split into matches, and each match has its own rabbit. The default is three matches of six holes: the rabbit resets on the 7th and 13th tees, so a round that got away from you early is not over.
One eighteen-hole match and two nine-hole matches are the other two settings. Fewer, longer matches mean fewer resets and more value on a single green.
Three matches of six, at a $5 stake
One rabbit per match, and one more if you play the extra hole.
HOLES 1–6
$5
to the holder on the 6th green
HOLES 7–12
$5
a fresh rabbit, loose again
ONE-HOLE RABBIT
$2.50
half rate, two holes or more pays full
Where the strokes land matters more here than in most games
With three matches and a golfer getting seven strokes, allocating them on the overall course index can drop most of them into one match. Spreading them across the three ranges keeps every match contested, and that is the default. It is a genuine choice, not a technicality — a match where one golfer has four shots is a match the other two are unlikely to win.
The extra rabbit
Holes that would otherwise be played for nothing — a deciding hole after the last match, or holes left over when a match ends early — can start one more rabbit instead. A rabbit that only ever runs a single hole is worth half the stake.
Settle these on the first tee
Four decisions, none of them wrong, all of them worth making before anyone is holding anything.
Accumulate, or lost on the first beaten hole?
Accumulating rewards a run of good holes and makes a two-leg lead worth protecting. Stopping after one keeps every hole live for all three of you. Groups that find the rabbit sticking with one golfer for a whole match usually want the second setting.
What happens to a loose rabbit at the end of a match?
Void the match and nobody pays, or carry that stake into the next one so the following match plays for double. Carrying is more fun and more expensive; a loose rabbit in the final match then has to be split.
How many matches?
Three of six is the default and keeps everyone interested to the last hole. One match over eighteen is the purest version and the most likely to be decided by one green. Two nines sit between them.
Where do the strokes go?
Spread evenly across the matches, or straight up on the course index. Spreading is the default because it stops one match absorbing a golfer’s whole allowance.
Scoring it without an argument
Rabbit is easy to play and easy to lose track of. The state is not a score, it is a sentence — who has it, how many legs clear they are, and which match it belongs to — and that sentence changes on holes where the card looks unremarkable. Three holes later nobody remembers whether the rabbit went loose on the 9th or the 10th.
Halved holds the state. You post gross scores. It applies the strokes, decides whether the hole was won outright, moves the rabbit, says out loud when it is caught or set loose, and closes each match on its last green.
A banner, not a number
Who holds the rabbit, how many legs clear, and which match it belongs to — at the top of the screen.
Caught and lost, announced
The hole that moves the rabbit says so, so nobody reconstructs it from the card afterwards.
Every match itemised
Each match, its holder, and what it paid — including the ones that ended loose at zero.
Set the two real choices
How a lead is lost, and how many matches the round is split into.
The state, stated
Holder, legs and segment in the banner, with every hole that moved it below.
Somebody has the rabbit. Everybody should know who.
Free for the group. Post gross scores and Halved handles the strokes, the catch, the loose rabbit and the settlement.
Nothing. The hole has no outright winner, so the rabbit does not move — it stays with whoever had it, or stays loose if nobody did. Only an outright low score changes anything.
Does the rabbit reset between matches?
Yes. Each match has its own rabbit and it starts loose, so holding one at the 6th green does not carry any advantage into the 7th tee. That is what stops a hot start deciding the whole round.
Nobody caught the rabbit all match. Now what?
By default the match is void: nobody pays and nobody collects. The other setting carries that stake into the next match, so the following one plays for double, and a loose rabbit in the last match is split evenly. Decide which before you start.
Can you play Rabbit with four?
Halved sets Rabbit up for a three-golfer group, which is where the format works best — with four, outright wins get rarer and the rabbit sits still. In a foursome, play Wolf or Sequoya 3s instead.
Is a two-leg lead safe?
Safer, not safe. The field has to win two holes outright to take it back, and they do not have to be the same golfer. On a six-hole match that is a real ask — but the four holes at the top of this page are exactly that happening.
Why does a one-hole rabbit pay half?
Because a rabbit nobody had a chance to chase is not the same bet. A leftover hole started as its own rabbit is worth playing for, but it is worth half the stake rather than a full match’s share.
