Golf games
Parful runs this59 (Geiberger)
Also called 59, Geiberger, Fifty-nine.
59 is an elimination game named for Al Geiberger's famous round. Players add up their strokes hole by hole, and the first player whose running total reaches or passes 59 loses; the game ends on that hole. If several players cross 59 on the same hole, the highest total loses and equal totals tie.
- Players
- 2 or more, any groups
- Scoring basis
- Gross by default; net is a later option
- Loss condition
- The first running total to reach or pass 59
- Same-hole crossings
- Highest total loses; equal totals tie
- Length
- Ends on the hole the first player crosses, usually between the 12th and the 15th
How 59 works
Every player keeps a normal scorecard and a running total of strokes. Nothing is decided hole by hole. The only question after each completed hole is whether anyone's total has reached 59, and the first player it happens to is the loser. There is no winner as such: the game is about not being the one who gets there.
The number comes from Al Geiberger's 59 at the 1977 Memphis Classic, the first sub-60 round on the PGA Tour. For a club golfer 59 strokes arrives around the 13th hole, so the game is a race over two thirds of the round, with the pressure on whoever has been playing worst.
The rules here are the ones Parful ratified for its own build. Strokes are gross by default. A hole is only counted once every player in the game has completed it, so a slow group never crosses early because the others have not finished.
When more than one player crosses
Because totals move by four, five or six strokes a hole, two players often pass 59 on the same hole. The ratified rule is simple: compare the totals after that hole and the highest one loses. A player at 59 exactly is safe if someone else finishes the hole at 60.
If two or more players cross on the same hole and finish on the same total, they share the loss. The game still ends on that hole.
- One player reaches or passes 59: that player loses, game over.
- Two players pass 59 on the same hole: the higher total loses.
- Two players pass 59 on the same hole with equal totals: they tie for the loss.
- Nobody reaches 59 by the last hole: the game has no loser. In practice this only happens on a nine-hole game or with a very short course.
Try it
Can we play 59 (Geiberger) in our format?
Derived from the same compatibility rules the scorecard uses, so it cannot drift from the product.
Own ball, individual
Available
Four-ball, best ball, counted scores
Available
Shamble, bramble, cha cha cha
Available
Scramble, foursomes, greensomes, chapman
Needs a score per player; this format keeps one per side
What the loser pays
The ratified ruleset deliberately carries no settlement formula. The core of the game is the loss condition, and groups attach whatever they like to it: the loser buys the drinks, pays each other player a unit, or covers the group's post-round bill. Some groups then restart the count from zero for the remaining holes and play a second, shorter game.
How Parful scores it
Start 59 from the group scorecard and pick who is in. Nothing else is recorded: the game reads the gross scores the group is already keeping and adds them up hole by hole, so the running total on the card is the running total in the game.
A hole only counts once every player in the game has posted it, because a crossing is not real until the whole group has played the hole. The moment somebody reaches 59 the game closes on that hole and names the loser. If two players cross together the higher total loses, and equal totals tie for the loss, which is the ratified Parful rule rather than a house variation.
It is scored gross by default and can be run net. There is no settlement: a loss condition has no per-unit spread to divide, so 59 ships as a score-only game rather than inventing a formula for it. It runs on own-ball rounds, four-ball style outings and shambles, and is unavailable on a scramble, where there is no individual score to accumulate.
Worked example
A worked example: holes 10 to 12
Four players. Running gross totals after nine holes: Ana 40, Ben 42, Cal 44, Dee 45. Each cell shows the hole score and the new running total.
| Hole | Ana | Ben | Cal | Dee | Anyone at 59? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 (par 4) | 4 (44) | 5 (47) | 5 (49) | 6 (51) | No |
| 11 (par 3) | 5 (49) | 4 (51) | 5 (54) | 4 (55) | No |
| 12 (par 5) | 4 (53) | 5 (56) | 5 (59) | 5 (60) | Cal 59 and Dee 60 both cross |
- Cal reached exactly 59 and survived because Dee finished the hole higher. Had Dee made a 4 for 59, the two would have tied for the loss.
- Ben at 56 was one bad hole from losing; the game is decided by whoever has the worst run, not by the best player.
Common variants
- Net 59
- Strokes are counted net, using each player's handicap strokes by stroke index, so a higher handicap is not doomed by the 8th hole. Parful's ratified rules make net a later, configurable option and gross the default.
- Restart after the loss
- When the first player loses, everyone resets to zero and plays a second race to a smaller target, often 29, over the remaining holes. Parful does not score this variant.
- Different target
- Groups with high handicaps sometimes raise the number to 69 or 79 so the game lasts to the back nine. The mechanics are unchanged.