The Poker golf game turns a good round into a winning hand. You earn playing cards for playing well. Whoever forms the best hand, takes the pot.
Sink a one-putt, stick a birdie, get up and down from the sand, and a card comes off the deck and into your stack. When the round ends you build the best five-card poker hand you can from everything you collected, and the best poker hand wins.
This format sits right alongside the best golf betting games, but the pot does not go to the low score. It goes to the best hand.
What you need before the first tee
Setup takes about as long as splitting a deck, because that is mostly what it is.
Poker plays with 2 to 4 golfers and runs best with a full threesome or foursome, where cards change hands all day.
You need one standard 52-card deck and one player to carry it and deal.
Everyone antes an agreed amount into a pot before the first tee. A common setup is $20 a player, so a foursome starts with $80 on the line. Some groups deal each player one card to start. Others start everyone empty and let the round fill the hand.
If your group’s handicaps sit close together, play it straight and earn cards on gross results. If they are spread out, earn cards on net so a higher handicapper’s net birdie counts the same as a scratch player’s. Our golf handicap calculator sorts the strokes in a minute, and how a golf handicap is calculated covers the how and why.
Almost every card in this game is won inside 30 yards of the hole, so the player who chips and putts best collects the most, which is exactly why a little time with the short-game practice games and drills shows up as cards in your stack, not just strokes off your card. The big clubs get you close. The short game fills the hand.
One more rule worth setting now: a three-putt feeds the pot, usually a buck or five, and everyone putts out on every green so the one-putts are earned honestly.
How you earn cards on the course
Here is the engine of the whole game. You collect a card every time you do something good on a hole. Groups tune the exact list, but this is the standard menu:
| What you do | Cards you earn |
|---|---|
| Birdie | 1 |
| Eagle or better | 2 |
| One-putt (for bogey or better) | 1 |
| Chip-in or hole-out from off the green | 2 |
| Sandie (up and down from a bunker, par or better) | 1 |
| Greenie (closest on a par 3, then par or better) | 1 |
Cards stack on the same hole. Hole a bunker shot for birdie and you have earned a sandie, a hole-out, and a birdie all at once, three or four cards on one swing.
One-putts are the steadiest cards on the board, so the player who rolls it well quietly laps the field. If the putter is the leak, a few of these tour-tested putting drills turn three putts into one.
Trouble cuts the other way. A ball out of bounds or in a hazard almost always ends your card chances for the hole, so knowing your options after a penalty can save a card you would otherwise hand away.
Good golf prints cards. Bad golf gives money away.
Building your hand and winning the pot
Those cards ride in your pocket until the 18th green, where the round turns into a card game. Each player makes their best five-card poker hand from every card they earned. Collect eight cards and you simply choose the best five. That is why volume wins: more cards mean more ways to land a pair, a flush, or better.
Standard poker rankings decide it. Here they are highest to lowest:
- Royal flush
- Straight flush
- Four of a kind
- Full house
- Flush
- Straight
- Three of a kind
- Two pair
- One pair
- High card
Best hand takes the pot. If two players tie on the same hand, the cleanest fix is to split it between them, though some groups break the tie with the next-highest card.
Say you finish with two kings, two sevens, a queen, a nine, and a three. Your best five make two pair, kings and sevens. Solid hand. Then the buddy who scrambled all day flips three fours and a pair of tens for a full house, and the $80 is his. He shot 88. You shot 81. The pot does not care.
Low score wins wins most betting games. Here the best hand wins.
Popular Poker variations groups play
Once your group has the basic game down, the deck opens up. A few variations worth a look:
- Wild cards — Shuffle a joker or two into the deck. One lucky draw can carry a thin hand, which keeps the player having a rough day from checking out by the 12th.
- Team Poker — Partners pool their earned cards and make one hand together. It is the friendliest way to fold a weaker player into the action.
- Draw and discard — Let each player swap cards and build their hand as they go. So, each player holds a max of 5 cards at any moment. Recommended for true poker players.
Tips and strategy to win at Poker golf
Poker has a deal of luck baked in, but the golfers who win it most are rarely the lucky ones. They are the ones who give themselves the most chances.
Chase volume, not heroics. Every card is another shot at a pair. A boring round of fairways, greens, and tap-ins can out-earn a wild round of two birdies and six doubles. Quantity builds hands.
Own the cards nobody else collects. Sandies and chip-ins are rare, so they swing the count hard. A little work from the bunker pays double here, and these five steps to get up and down from the sand are where to start.
Putt out for the card, not the score. A one-putt earns its card even when you are tapping in for bogey. The player chasing pars forgets that. The player chasing cards does not.
Read the deck late. If the deck is running thin and big hands are still out, a single late card can flip the pot. Know roughly what is left and press when it counts.
Stop swinging for eagles. The two-card hauls are seductive and almost never come. Pass up a routine card while gambling for a glamorous one and you leave the pot to the steady player.
Claim what you earned, every time. Cards get won and never taken in the shuffle of a busy hole. If you do not pull it from the deck before you walk off, you did not earn it.
WORTH KNOWING
Poker is a charity-outing favorite for a reason. It keeps the golfer who is nine over after six holes fully invested, because one hot stretch and a lucky deal can still steal the whole thing. Few betting games keep everybody alive to the 18th the way this one does.
Questions golfers ask before their first hand
Is Poker golf mostly luck?
There is real luck in what you draw, no question. But you control how many times you draw. Play well and you might pull ten cards while others pull six, and ten cards beat six nearly every time. The deal is luck. The number of deals is skill.
Can you play Poker with just two players?
Yes. Drop the ante and widen the earn list, adding greens in regulation and fairways hit, so cards actually pile up between two players. With a thin list, a twosome can reach the 18th with three cards each and a coin-flip hand.
What if the deck runs out of cards?
In a generous foursome it can happen. Either shuffle in a second deck from the start, or cap each player at a set number of cards so one deck lasts the round. Decide it on the first tee, not when the deck is empty on the 15th.
Deal yourself in
Poker rewards the round you actually played, not just the number you score you finished with. Grind out pars and you stack cards. Get hot around the greens and you stack more. Then the deck has the last word, and that is the fun of it. Bring a deck this weekend and let good golf build you a winning hand.
Other golf games you’ll love
If Poker is your kind of action, these play in the same spirit:
- Vegas — Turns each team’s two scores into one big number, a money game where a blow-up hole stings.
- Bingo Bango Bongo — Hands out points for being first on the green, closest to the pin, and first in the yole, so every golfer in the group has something to play for.
- Skins — Puts a price on every hole and lets ties carry, so one clutch birdie can scoop a pile.
- The Wad — The side bet for putting studs, rewarding made putts the way Poker rewards one-putts.
- Best golf games for 4 players — Need a full menu for the foursome? This guide has a format for every group.
