Golf games
Parful runs thisVegas
Also called Las Vegas golf game, Vegas golf.
Vegas is a four-player golf game in two fixed pairs. On each hole a pair's two scores are joined into one two-digit team number with the lower score first, so a 4 and a 5 make 45. The difference between the two team numbers is the points won on the hole, and the differences add up across the round.
- Players
- Exactly 4, in one group, as two fixed pairs
- Scoring basis
- Gross or net (net by default)
- Team number
- Ten times the lower score plus the higher score: 4 and 5 make 45
- Points
- The gap between the two team numbers, won by the lower team
- Ties
- Equal team numbers score nothing
- Winner
- The pair with the larger running differential
How Vegas works
Four players split into two pairs before the round and stay in those pairs for all eighteen holes. Each player plays their own ball and records their own score. When a hole is finished, each pair combines its two scores into a single team number by putting the lower score in the tens place and the higher score in the ones place. A 4 and a 5 become 45, a 3 and a 6 become 36, and two 4s become 44.
The pair with the lower team number wins the hole, and the points won are the difference between the two team numbers. A 45 against a 46 wins one point; a 35 against a 46 wins eleven. That is the whole appeal of Vegas: one bad score by one player turns a small loss into a big one, because a 7 pushes the pair's number from the 40s into the high 40s or 50s.
Points are tracked as a running differential. The winning pair on a hole adds the difference and the losing pair subtracts it, so the two totals are always mirror images. At the end of the round, the pair with the positive differential wins by that many points.
Building the team number
The team number is always the lower score times ten plus the higher score, which is the same as writing the two digits side by side for any score under 10. The low score goes first so that the good score does most of the work: a 3 and an 8 is 38, not 83.
A hole only counts when all four players have a score on it; until then it is left out of the differential. In net Vegas each player's net score on the hole is used, so a stroke on the hole can turn a 5 into a 4 and pull the team number down by ten.
Try it
Can we play Vegas 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
Where the game is won
Vegas punishes the blow-up hole more than any other pairs game. In a four-ball the partner's good score covers a triple bogey; in Vegas the triple bogey still sits in the ones place and costs three points against a par. The best pairs play for two solid scores rather than one heroic one. The swing holes are the ones where two pars meet a birdie and a double bogey: 44 against 36 is eight points to the pair with the birdie, even though the two pairs are level on total strokes.
How Parful scores it
A member starts Vegas from the group scorecard for a group of exactly four and sets the two pairs at the same time. The pairs are fixed for the round. Gross or net is chosen at creation; net uses each player's handicap strokes from their Course Handicap™ on each hole.
The team numbers, the per-hole differential and the running totals are computed from the hole scores already on the card, so there is nothing extra to enter. Standings show each pair's differential and the sum of its team numbers, and a corrected score reruns the whole game from hole 1. If either pair is missing a player, no differential is computed and the pairs are listed by the sum of their team numbers instead.
A stake per point can be attached. At settlement each player in a pair carries the pair's full differential, so a pair that finishes plus 10 has each of its two players collecting 10 units. Vegas works on any format where each player records their own hole score, including four-ball and shamble; it is not available on a scramble, foursomes, greensomes or chapman.
Worked example
A worked example: six holes, net
Ana and Ben play Cal and Dee. Net scores are shown. The differential is tracked from Ana and Ben's side; Cal and Dee's is the mirror image.
| Hole | Ana | Ben | Cal | Dee | Ana and Ben | Cal and Dee | Difference | Running (Ana and Ben) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 45 | 46 | 1 to Ana and Ben | +1 |
| 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 35 | 44 | 9 to Ana and Ben | +10 |
| 3 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 56 | 45 | 11 to Cal and Dee | -1 |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 44 | 44 | Tied, nothing scored | -1 |
| 5 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 46 | 57 | 11 to Ana and Ben | +10 |
| 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 55 | 35 | 20 to Cal and Dee | -10 |
- On hole 2 Ana's 3 goes in the tens place, so the pair's number is 35 against two pars at 44: nine points from a single birdie.
- On hole 5 Dee's 7 sits in the ones place and turns Cal's 5 into a 57. Ben's 4 covers Ana's 6 only partly, giving 46, and the pair still wins eleven.
- Hole 6 shows the swing: Cal's birdie makes 35 while two bogeys make 55, and twenty points change hands on one hole.
Common variants
- The flip
- When one pair makes a birdie, the other pair's number is flipped so the high score goes first: a 45 becomes 54. Parful does not score the flip; team numbers are always low digit first.
- Points cap
- Some groups cap the points on any one hole, often at 10, to limit the damage from a blow-up. Parful scores the full difference with no cap.
- Rotating partners
- Pairs change every six holes so each player partners everyone once. Parful keeps the two pairs fixed for the round; Sixes is the game that rotates partners.
- Money per point
- A stake per point is the normal way to play. Parful can carry the stake on the game, shows the differential as units per player at the end and never moves money.