Golf games
Parful runs thisPig
Also called Three Little Pigs.
Pig, also called Three Little Pigs, is a golf side game in which every player completes a full 18 holes and then throws out their three highest hole scores. The remaining fifteen holes are added and the lowest total wins, gross or net. The discards are automatic: nobody chooses which holes to drop.
- Players
- 2 or more, in any group of the outing
- Round
- A full 18 holes, every hole scored
- Discards
- The three highest scores on the card, chosen automatically
- Counts
- The remaining 15 holes added together
- Scoring basis
- Gross or net, chosen when the game is created
- Wins
- Lowest 15-hole total; equal totals share the position
How Pig works
Pig forgives the three worst holes of the round. Everyone plays and scores all eighteen; when the card is complete, each player's three highest hole scores are removed and the other fifteen are added. The lowest adjusted total wins. The three dropped holes are the three little pigs of the alternative name.
The discard is by score, not by damage against par. An 8 on a par 5 is dropped ahead of a 6 on a par 3, even though the 6 is the bigger mistake, because 8 is the higher number. When two holes tie for the third-highest score only one of them is dropped, and it makes no difference which, since they are worth the same. Played net, the comparison is made on net scores after the strokes each player receives from their Course Handicap™ have been taken off; played gross it is made on raw scores.
A full round is required. A player who has not finished all eighteen has no adjusted total, because the three highest scores cannot be known until every hole is in.
Why groups play it
Pig changes what a blow-up costs. In stroke play a 9 is four or five over and the round is gone; in Pig a 9 is one of the three holes that vanish, and the player is still in the game. That suits a social outing with a wide spread of ability, and it produces a different winner from the main competition often enough to be worth a side stake.
The trade is that steadiness is worth less. A player who makes eighteen bogeys drops three bogeys and keeps fifteen; a player with three doubles and fifteen pars drops the doubles and keeps fifteen pars. The second card wins Pig by fifteen strokes even though the two players may be close in the day's Stableford.
Try it
Can we play Pig 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
How Parful scores it
Pig is a side game a member can start from the scorecard on a club outing. It needs at least two players from any groups. The person starting it chooses gross or net and can attach a stake, settled on the difference in adjusted totals between every pair of players and shown as who owes whom; Parful never moves money.
Parful takes each player's eighteen hole scores from the cards the outing is already keeping, sorts them, removes the three highest and adds the rest. The standings recompute on every score entered and show the dropped scores alongside the total. A player is ranked only when all eighteen holes have a recorded score; a pickup or a missing hole leaves that player unranked rather than given a guessed total. There is no in-round choice of holes to discard; the three highest are always the three that go. Equal totals share a position, and a correction reruns the whole calculation.
Pig needs each player's own hole scores, so it is available on individual rounds, on four-ball and counted-score formats and on shamble-style rounds, but not on a scramble or any format with one score per team.
Worked example
A worked example: a wild card against a steady one
Ana and Ben both shoot 86 gross. Dropped scores are marked with an asterisk.
| Hole | Ana | Ben |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 5* |
| 2 | 4 | 5* |
| 3 | 7* | 5* |
| 4 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 5 | 5 |
| 7 | 4 | 5 |
| 8 | 6* | 4 |
| 9 | 5 | 5 |
| 10 | 4 | 5 |
| 11 | 8* | 5 |
| 12 | 4 | 5 |
| 13 | 3 | 4 |
| 14 | 5 | 5 |
| 15 | 5 | 5 |
| 16 | 4 | 5 |
| 17 | 5 | 4 |
| 18 | 5 | 5 |
| 18-hole total | 86 | 86 |
| Dropped | 8 + 7 + 6 = 21 | 5 + 5 + 5 = 15 |
| Pig total | 86 - 21 = 65 | 86 - 15 = 71 |
- Ben's dropped 5s are marked on holes 1 to 3, but he had fourteen 5s on the card and any three of them give the same 71.
- On a net card the same sort is done on net scores, so the dropped holes can differ from the ones that would go on a gross card.
Common variants
- Choose your own pigs
- Each player names the three holes to discard, before the round or as they go. Parful does not score this version; the three highest scores are always the ones dropped.
- One pig or two
- Some groups drop only the single worst hole, or two. Parful scores three discards only.
- Worst against par
- Dropping the three holes that were worst relative to par rather than the three highest numbers. Parful does not score this version; it drops the three highest scores, gross or net.
- Money per stroke
- Players attach a stake per stroke of difference in the adjusted totals. Parful can carry the stake as a wager on the game, shows who owes whom at the end and never moves money.