How golf is played and scored, written down

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  Wolf

  Wolf is a four-player betting game where the tee order rotates and the player teeing off last on each hole, the Wolf, watches the other three drives and then chooses a partner or goes alone. Sides play best ball for the hole.

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  Skins

  Skins is a golf betting game in which each hole is worth one skin and the skin goes to the player with the outright lowest score on that hole. When two or more players tie for low, nobody wins the skin and it carries over, so the next hole is worth two skins, until someone wins a hole outright.

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  Nassau

  A Nassau is three golf bets in one round: the front nine, the back nine and the full eighteen. Each bet is settled on its own, so a player can win the front, lose the back and still take the overall. In Parful each leg goes to the lowest total, gross or net, and a tie splits the leg.

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  Vegas

  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.

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  Stableford

  Stableford is a points format: each hole earns points against your net par, with 2 for a net par, 3 for a net birdie and 0 for anything worse than a net bogey. The highest total wins, and a disaster hole costs you at most one hole's points.

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  Scramble

  A scramble is a team format in which every player hits, the team picks the best ball, and everyone plays the next shot from that spot until the ball is holed. The team records one score per hole on one card, and net scoring uses a single team handicap built from each player's Course Handicap™.

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  Greensomes

  Greensomes is a two-player, one-ball format: both partners drive on every hole, the pair chooses the better drive, and the partner whose drive was not chosen plays the second shot, with alternate shots from there. The pair keeps one card and plays off 60% of the lower Course Handicap™ plus 40% of the higher.

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  Course Handicap™

  A Course Handicap™ is your Handicap Index® translated to the tees you are playing today: index times the Slope Rating™ divided by 113, plus the difference between the Course Rating™ and par, rounded to a whole number. It is the number of strokes the course gives you before any format allowance.

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  Net double bogey, maximum score and pickups

  Net double bogey is the most any hole can count for handicap: par, plus two, plus the strokes you receive there. It is why you can pick up on a disaster hole without wrecking your card, and it is one of three cap rules a Parful outing can run.

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  Countback

  Countback settles a tied stroke play or Stableford competition without a playoff: compare the tied players over the back nine, then the last six holes, then the last three, then the eighteenth. The first stretch that separates them decides it.

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  Round robin

  A round robin is a match play competition in which every player or team plays every other once and the standings are ranked on points, 3 for a win and 1 for a draw. Ties on points are broken head to head, then on net difference across recorded results.

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  Double elimination

  Double elimination is a bracket in which a player is out only after two defeats. A first loss drops the player into a losers bracket that runs alongside the winners bracket; the two champions meet in a grand final, and if the losers champion wins it the bracket resets for one deciding match.