How to Play Golf Card Game

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Golf Card Game is a draw-and-swap card game for two to six players in which everyone tries to build the lowest-scoring hand over a series of rounds, each round representing a "hole". Cards are laid out face down in a grid, and players spend their turns hunting for low-value replacements, slowly revealing what they hold. The tension between what you know about your own grid and what you can guess about your opponents keeps every round genuinely engaging.

It is a firm favourite at kitchen tables and on holiday because it needs nothing more than a standard deck, scales well from two players upward, and is easy enough for children to follow yet has enough decision-making to hold adult interest. Nine-hole and six-hole versions suit different time budgets, making it one of the more adaptable traditional card games around.

A little history

Golf Card Game's origins are unclear. It shares its conceit of "holes" and a low-score-wins objective with the sport of golf, and it belongs to a broad family of draw-and-discard games that became popular across Europe and North America during the twentieth century. It is sometimes called "Rat Screw" or "Polish Poker" in certain regions, though those names are also attached to unrelated games, which makes tracing a single lineage difficult. What is widely documented is that the nine-hole format mirrors the sport directly and that the game has been played informally under consistent rules across multiple English-speaking countries for several decades.

Setting up

1. Shuffle the deck thoroughly and designate a dealer. The deal rotates clockwise each hole.
2. Deal each player six cards face down in a 2x3 grid. Players must not look at any card yet.
3. Place the remaining cards face down in the centre as the draw pile (the stock).
4. Turn the top card of the stock face up beside it to start the discard pile.
5. Each player secretly peeks at the two cards in the bottom row of their grid only, then returns them face down. No card is turned face up at this stage.

How to play

1. The player to the dealer's left goes first. Play proceeds clockwise.
2. On your turn you must take one card: either the face-up top card of the discard pile, or the unknown top card of the stock.
3. If you take a card, you may swap it for any card in your 2x3 grid. Place the swapped card face up on the discard pile. The card you swapped in goes face up in the grid position and remains face up for the rest of the hole.
4. Alternatively, if you drew from the stock and do not want it, you may discard it immediately face up without swapping. You must then flip one of your own face-down grid cards face up instead.
5. You may never look at a face-down card in your grid before deciding whether to swap or flip; the decision to flip is only available when you discard a drawn stock card without swapping.
6. A hole ends the moment any one player has all six of their grid cards face up. All other players get exactly one final turn each (proceeding clockwise) before scoring begins.
7. After the final turns, all players flip any remaining face-down cards face up. Every card in the grid now counts toward that player's score for the hole.
8. Record each player's score for the hole, then deal the next hole. Play continues for nine holes in total (or six holes for a shorter game).

Winning and scoring

Each card scores its face value in points (Ace = 1, number cards 2 to 10 at face value, Jack and Queen = 10, King = 0). Jokers, if included, score minus 2 points each. If two cards in the same column of your grid share the same rank, they cancel each other out and that column scores zero. Tally each player's score after every hole and keep a running total. The player with the lowest cumulative score after all nine holes wins. In the event of a tie, the tied players play one further sudden-death hole to determine the winner.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns whether a player who triggers the end of a hole by turning their last card may still be beaten by an opponent who completes their final turn with a lower round score. The standard ruling is yes: triggering the end of the hole offers no protection. A second frequent question concerns the discard-and-flip option: the standard ruling is that you must have drawn from the stock (not the discard pile) to use it, and you cannot flip a card that is already face up. You must flip a genuinely face-down card.

Column-cancellation edge cases also arise. Cancellation applies only to cards in the same column (the same two-card vertical pair in the 2x3 grid), not the same row, and only when both cards in that column share the same rank. Three matching cards across the grid do not produce a three-way cancel; only the matching column pair cancels, and the third card scores normally. If you are playing with Jokers and house rules vary on their score, agree the value before the first deal and note it on the scoresheet.

How to win more often

• Prioritise flipping your unknown cards early so you are making decisions with full information. Blind swaps late in the game are expensive mistakes.
• Kings are your best possible card (zero points), so take a King from the discard pile almost every time one appears, even if you are swapping out a low card.
• Watch the discard pile carefully. If a low card you need appears and an opponent takes it, note what they discarded in exchange, as it tells you something about their grid.
• Build toward column matches deliberately. Trading a seven into a column where you already hold a seven costs you nothing on that column and can save you ten or more points.
• Do not rush to end the hole unless all your visible cards are already very low. Triggering the final round too early hands opponents a free turn to improve, and you get no extra benefit from finishing first.

Variations

4-Card Golf

Each player receives four cards arranged in a 2x2 grid rather than six. Players peek at one card of their choice before play begins. The game moves faster and suits younger players or shorter sessions. Scoring and column-cancellation rules remain identical, applied to the two columns of two cards each.

9-Card Golf

Cards are dealt in a 3x3 grid, giving each player nine cards to manage. Players peek at two bottom-row cards before play. Column cancellation extends across three-card columns: if all three cards in a column share the same rank, the entire column scores zero. This version rewards longer-term planning and suits experienced groups.

Golf with Jokers

Two Jokers are added to the deck. A Joker placed in your grid scores minus 2 points, making it the single most valuable card in the game. Jokers may be swapped in via the normal swap mechanic but cannot be discarded without being placed; if you draw a Joker from the stock you must swap it into your grid. This rule is not universal, so confirm it before play begins.

Stroke Play vs Match Play Scoring

In the standard stroke-play format, total points across all holes determine the winner. A match-play variant instead awards each hole to the player with the lowest score for that hole (a tie halves the hole). The player who wins the most holes overall wins the game. This format introduces a different tactical consideration: sometimes it is worth conceding a hole rather than taking risks to claw back points.

Golf Card Game: frequently asked questions