Eighteen separate bets, one a hole, and no way to be out of it. Have a poor front nine and you can still walk off the last having taken the biggest pot of the day, which is why it is the game groups fall back on when the handicaps do not match.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Each hole is worth one skin. To win it you need the lowest score on that hole outright — beat everybody, not tie them. If two or more golfers share the low score nobody wins, and the skin carries to the next hole, which is then worth two. Carries keep stacking until somebody wins a hole alone.
HOLES 11 TO 14 · THE CARRY
why nobody quits
Next hole worth 2
Next hole worth 3
Next hole worth 4
Sam takes 4 skins — $24
HOLE 11
4 & 4
low score shared
HOLE 12
5 & 5
low score shared
HOLE 13
3 & 3
low score shared
HOLE 14
Sam 4
alone wins it
Three holes running, two golfers tie the low score. Nobody wins a thing.
So the fourteenth is worth four skins — and everyone knows it walking to the tee.
Sam makes four on his own and takes all four skins.
2–6
golfers
18
separate bets
Win
outright, or it carries
~2
min to learn
The rules
Everybody puts the same money in on the first tee, and that money pays out one hole at a time. Low score wins the hole and takes a skin. The only thing separating Skins from ordinary match play is the word outright: a shared low score wins nothing at all.
That single rule gives the game its shape. In a four-ball, several holes a round end in a tie for low, so skins bunch up and then get won in a lump — and a golfer who has done nothing for an hour can take a quarter of the day’s money on one green.
1
Everyone antes
The same amount from each golfer on the first tee, and how you hold it decides how it pays.
2
Low score alone wins
One golfer below everyone else takes the skin. Two golfers level on it and the hole is nobody’s.
3
Ties carry forward
The unwon skin joins the next hole, making it worth two. Then three. It stops when somebody wins alone.
Two ways to hold the money
Agree which one before you tee off. They pay out very differently.
POOL
One fixed pot, split by skins won
Four golfers at $20 makes $80, shared out at the end in proportion to the skins each of you won. Nobody can lose more than the ante, which is why it suits a casual group or a big field.
PER SKIN
Every skin is worth a fixed amount
At $2 a skin the other three each hand you $2 for every one you win, so a four-skin carry moves $24 on one hole. There is no ceiling on the day.
The carry
The carry is the game. Without it a tied hole would just be a dead hole; with it, a tie makes the next tee more interesting than the last one, and three ties in a row turn an ordinary par five into the hole everybody remembers.
Carryover on
The normal game, and the one worth playing. A halved hole rolls into the next, and what is on offer keeps climbing until somebody wins a hole on their own.
×2, 3, 4
and up
Carryover off
A tied hole is void and its skin is gone. Simpler to settle and much flatter to play, but it suits a group that ties often and would rather not let a five-skin hole decide the day.
×1
always
The one rule people forget
A carry has to be won outright as well. Golfers who have watched a pot build for three holes often assume the next hole pays the best score no matter what — it does not. Tie the low score on a hole worth four skins and all four carry on to the next one. Pots of five and six happen, and they happen because of exactly this.
Scoring, worked all the way through
Four golfers playing per skin at $2, net scores. Watch what the middle hole does to the money.
Hole 4 — a clean win
par 4
Net scores: Paul 4, Dave 5, Sam 5, Lee 6. One skin on offer and Paul is alone at the bottom.
PAUL
1 skin
+$6, two dollars from each
CARRY AFTER
none
hole 5 is worth one
Hole 5 — two golfers tie the low
par 3
Net scores: Sam 3, Lee 3, Paul 4, Dave 4. Two golfers on three, so the low score is shared and the hole is nobody’s.
WINNER
nobody
no money changes hands
CARRY AFTER
1 skin
hole 6 is worth two
Hole 6 — the carry gets taken
par 5
Two skins on the hole. Net scores: Dave 4, Paul 5, Sam 5, Lee 5. Dave is alone at four and takes both.
DAVE
2 skins
+$12, four dollars from each
CARRY AFTER
none
back to one a hole
AFTER THOSE THREE HOLES
Paul
+$2
Dave
+$10
Sam
−$6
Lee
−$6
Three skins won across three holes, and the column sums to zero — the check to do if you are keeping this on the card. Note what happened to Sam and Lee: they made the two lowest scores of the stretch and are the two who are down.
A carry on the 18th
This is the one situation the rules do not resolve on their own: the last hole is halved and there is a carry sitting on it. There is nowhere left for it to go.
Settle it on the first tee rather than the last green, because by then everybody has an interest. The cleanest answer is that the money is split between the golfers who tied it — they did make the best score, and it avoids sending four people back down the eighteenth in the dark.
Split between whoever tied it
Simple, ends the round, and rewards the score that was actually made. The default worth adopting.
Play it off
Back down the eighteenth, or nearest the pin from the last tee. Good fun with daylight and a big carry; a nuisance without either.
House rules worth agreeing on the first tee
None of these is wrong. Pick before you tee off, because every one of them changes who wins.
Handicaps, or straight up?
Skins is the game where this matters most, because a stroke here does not shade a result — it wins a whole pot. Gross rewards the best player and makes the day predictable. Net keeps everybody live but hands the high handicapper the favourite’s spot on his stroke holes, so many groups play net and take something off the difference rather than giving full strokes.
Pool, or per skin?
A pool is capped: the ante is the most anyone can lose. Per skin has no ceiling, and a four-skin carry late in the round is real money. If the group has not played together before, start with a pool.
Do junk skins count?
Some groups pay a skin for the incidentals too — a sandy, a greenie, a birdie nobody matched. It gives the good ball-striker something to play for on a hole he has already halved, but it means agreeing exactly what counts, and that conversation is better had on the first tee than the fourth green.
Does the carry ever get capped?
Rarely, but a group that ties often can stack five or six skins onto one hole, which turns the round into a single lottery. Capping the carry keeps the pot meaningful without letting one green decide the day.
Scoring Skins without doing the arithmetic
Skins looks like the easy one to keep on paper and it is the one groups most often get wrong. The trouble is not the addition — it is that every hole has to be checked for an outright winner after strokes. A stroke you forgot turns a clean win into a tie, which means the skin should have carried, which means the next several holes were scored wrong as well. One missed dot on the card and the back nine unwinds.
Halved does that part. You post gross scores; it applies the strokes, decides whether the hole was won outright, and carries what nobody won — so the number on the next tee is always right.
The carry is always on screen
What this hole is worth, before anyone hits. It is the number that changes how a hole gets played.
Your house rules, kept
Carryover, pool or per skin, junk skins and the handicap method are all settings. Set them once.
Everyone sees the same total
One golfer enters, the group watches. No reconciling four cards in the car park.
Set it up once
Carryover, how the money is held, and the ante.
Know what the hole is worth
Before anyone tees off, not after the argument.
Know where you stand
Skins won and what they are worth, all round.
Play Skins. Let something else count the carry.
Free for the group, no card to enter, and the settlement is done before you get to the car park.
Two is enough and four is the most in one group, which is why it is the usual choice for an awkward group size. The more golfers in it, the more often the low score is shared, so carries build faster and the pots get bigger. A skins game across several groups is a different thing — one pot, the whole field, and no limit on the number of players.
What happens if everyone ties the hole?
The same as two golfers tying: nobody wins it. The skin is unwon whenever the low score is shared, however many share it, and with carryover on it moves to the next hole.
Should you play Skins gross or net?
Net if the handicaps in the group are spread, gross if they are close. The reason to think about it in Skins specifically is that one stroke wins an entire pot rather than shading a match, so a high handicapper with a stroke on a hard hole is the favourite there. Giving something less than full strokes is the usual compromise.
Is Skins the same as a Nassau?
No. In Nassau you are playing three long bets, and a hole only matters for what it does to the match. In Skins each hole is its own bet, settled on the green, and nothing carries between golfers — only between holes. It is also the only common game where making the best score can win you nothing at all.
