Skins

Skins is golf’s simplest and most dramatic points game: every hole is worth a skin, and only an outright win takes it. Tie a hole and its value rolls onto the next one, so a quiet front nine can turn one hole on the back into the whole match.

The core rules

1. Every hole carries the same agreed value — a skin.
2. The player with the outright best score on a hole wins its skin.
3. If two or more players tie for best, nobody wins the hole. The skin carries over: the next hole is worth its own skin plus everything carried.
4. The hole winner collects the full pot value from every other player.
5. At the end of the round, each player’s skins settle against everyone else’s — in points, tokens, or whatever the group agreed.

That’s the whole game. There is no single official rulebook for Skins — it is a folk format — so the details below are the decisions every group has to make, and how AleaGolf makes them.

A worked example

Anna and Björn play 10-point Skins:

Hole	Anna	Björn	Result
1	4	4	Tie — the skin carries. Next hole is worth 20
2	3	4	Anna wins the 20-point pot

With three players the pot multiplies: if A shoots 3 against two 5s, both opponents pay A the full skin. One great hole in a four-ball collects from three players at once — that is why Skins rewards bold play.

Common variants

Variant	What changes	In AleaGolf
Carryover	Ties push the value forward	The default — always on
No carryover	A tied skin is simply void	Planned
Validation (“prove it”)	A skin must be confirmed by tying or beating the field on the next hole	Not supported
Per-hole values	Some holes are worth more — say, double on the back nine	Supported (Advanced setup)
Birdie skins	A skin needs birdie or better, not just a win	Planned
Putting skins	Fewest putts wins the hole	A separate game in AleaGolf

How AleaGolf plays it

These are the exact rules the app implements — the same logic our automated test suite checks on every release:

• Scoring basis: choose gross (default), net, or Stableford points at setup. Net allocates handicap strokes per hole by stroke index, the same WHS-style allocation the scorecard uses. On the Stableford basis the highest points win a hole.
• Carryover math: the pot is the sum of the actual carried stakes. With per-hole values, a 10-point tie followed by a 20-point hole makes a 30-point pot — not 2 × the base.
• Ties at the end: an unclaimed carried pot is void. Nobody won it, nobody pays it.
• Incomplete holes: a hole where any player has no score is skipped — it neither awards a skin nor grows the pot. Missing data never invents a winner.
• Partial rounds: end after 13 holes and every completed hole settles normally; nothing else does.
• Score corrections: skins are recomputed from current scores, so a fixed card automatically re-settles every affected carryover.
• Points, never money: AleaGolf tracks side games in points and tokens. What the group does with the final standings is up to the group.

During the round, the Side Games tab shows every skin as it lands and — the part paper can’t do — the live carried pot before the group tees off on the hole that’s suddenly worth three skins.