Parzee is a golf-infused Yahtzee-like game played across 18 holes. Each player fills a scorecard of single-use boxes based on their on-the-course accomplishments. The more difficult the accomplishment, the more points you put on the scorecard.Add up all points at the end, and the most points wins.
What makes it worth playing is the decision on every hole. A birdie, a sand save, a holed chip, and the longest drive in the fairway all fill different boxes, and each hole fills one box. A steady ball-striker who spends his best holes on the wrong boxes can lose to a higher handicap who banks a chip-in and an up and down at the right moment.
What Is the Parzee Golf Game?
Parzee borrows its bones from Yahtzee. The Parzee scorecard has an upper section, a lower section, a flagship box that works like the Yahtzee box, a Chance box, and a bonus for a strong upper half. Instead of rolling dice, you play golf holes and assign each result to a box you have not used yet. If you know how to fill a Yahtzee sheet, you already understand the gist of Parzee.
It is a points-based golf game at heart, closer to Stableford than to a match or a press, since you are chasing a point total rather than beating one opponent hole by hole. Stableford scores every hole the same way. Parzee makes you decide which accomplishment to bank.
Two to five players works, and everyone keeps their own card. Parzee is one of our Golf Games Hub originals. We created it so that a strong short-game artist and a bomber play with an equal chance to win. If you want to hone in your golf game, and win more, the practice games and drills library is built to find the leaks in your short game and fix them one at a time.
How the Parzee Scorecard Works
The card holds 18 boxes for an 18-hole round, so every hole you play has a home. Seven of them score your holes, nine make up a menu of golf accomplishments, and the last two are the Parzee box and the Chance box. One more line sits underneath, the Parzee Bonus, which pays you again every time you put another streak together. You can keep score on the online Parzee scorecard or on a printed card via our downloadable PDF Parzee scorecard.
You bank as you go. After a hole finishes, you pick one open box, write that hole into it, and that box is done for the round. There are no take-backs, and that tension is what makes it more fun. A birdie on the 2nd is a great score, but spend it in a small box and you cannot get it back when a better chance comes along.
Some holes will fit nothing you have left. When that happens you scratch a zero into any open box, the same forced move Yahtzee makes you take on a cold roll. A blow-up hole still has to go somewhere, and knowing how penalty strokes stack up helps you judge when a hole is cooked and best spent as a scratch. At the end you total every box, add the upper bonus and any Parzee bonus, and that grand total is your score.
The Upper Section: Scoring Your Holes
The upper section has seven score boxes. Two are par 3s, three are par 4s, and two are par 5s. A par-3 hole can only be banked in a par-3 box, and the same goes for the others, so you are choosing which of your holes earn a spot up here. Each result scores off a difficulty table, and the harder the par, the more a good score is worth.
| Result | Par 3 | Par 4 | Par 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ace or albatross | 100 | 150 | 200 |
| Eagle | n/a | 45 | 25 |
| Birdie | 20 | 18 | 12 |
| Par | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| Bogey | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Double bogey | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Triple bogey or worse | 0 | 0 | 0 |
A triple bogey or worse scores zero in any score box, and a wrecked hole earns nothing up here. There is one reward for a strong upper half. If your seven score boxes add up to 48 or more, you collect a 25-point upper bonus, which means the holes you choose to bank up here matter as much as the scores themselves.
The Lower Section: The Accomplishment Menu
The lower section is a menu of nine things you can do on a golf course, each worth a set number of points and each usable once. You earn a box by pulling the shot off, then banking the hole it happened on. This is where Parzee rewards the parts of golf a scorecard usually ignores.
- One-putt — 5 points
- Green in regulation — 5 points
- Longest drive in the fairway — 10 points
- Drive the green — 10 points, for reaching a par-4 green in one or a par-5 green in two
- Sand save — 12 points
- Greenie — 15 points, closest to the pin on a par 3
- Long putt — 20 points, a putt of 25 feet or more holed
- Scrambler — 25 points, up and down from 50-plus yards
- Chip-in — 30 points, holed from off the green
The menu is why a short-game player stays dangerous in Parzee. A chip-in is worth more than a par-4 birdie, and a scrambler pays better than most birdies. You cannot shoot your way to these boxes, you have to actually pull the shots off, which is why sharpening a few short-game shots around the green pays off faster here than almost anywhere else.
Parzee, Chance, and the Streak
The Parzee box takes a par or better streak. Play four holes in a row at par or better, and you bank the fourth hole that finishes the run into Parzee for a flat 45.
Streaks cannot share holes. Five pars in a row is still one Parzee, because the first four are spent and the fifth hole has to start a fresh run. String together eight and you have two, worth 45 and then 25. Every additional streak beyond the first pays 25 on the Parzee Bonus line, and unlike everything else on the card, those 4th holes can also still be logged elsewhere on the card so you’re not forced to scratch anything due to any bonus Parzees.
Chance is the safety valve. You can bank any hole into Chance and score its result off the table, no matter which par boxes are still open. It rescues a good score when the box it belongs in is already gone. Unlike Yahtzee where you can keep rolling, you stop after 18 holes in Parzee.
Parzee Variations for Mixed Groups and Beginners
Open Card
New players can drop the bank-as-you-go rule and allocate all 18 holes to boxes at the end of the round instead. Open Card takes the pressure off the live decision and lets a first-timer learn the card without getting burned by a bad early call. It is the gentlest way into the game, but requires a good memory.
Handicap Parzee
This is the version to play with a mixed group. You use net results in the seven score boxes, Chance, and the Parzee, while the rest of the lower section is independent of whether or not you’re playing net or gross. Work out everyone’s strokes with our golf handicap calculator before the round.
Parzee rewards doing golf things, not just shooting a low number. Gross play still favors the better ball-striker, the way most golf games do, which is exactly why Handicap Parzee is the default for a group of mixed abilities. Streaks follow your net scores in this version too, so a run of four is in reach for every handicap.
Team Parzee
Partners share a single card and fill it together across the round. Team Parzee turns the banking decisions into a two-person argument, which is where a lot of the fun lives, and it lets a stronger player carry a beginner without either of them sitting out.
Winning Parzee: Strategy and Mistakes
The rules are easy to learn. Playing the card well takes a few rounds. These habits separate a player who fills the card well from one who blows it.
- Hold Chance as long as you can. It is the only box that accepts any result, so spending it early leaves you nowhere to hide a blow-up on the back nine.
- Feed the upper boxes your best holes. You only get two par-3, three par-4, and two par-5 score boxes, so bank your strongest hole of each type there and chase the 25-point bonus at 48 or better.
- Fill the menu boxes you can realistically earn. A greenie, a sand save, and the longest fairway drive show up most rounds. Leaving them open while you wait on a chip-in usually costs more than it makes.
- Read the card before you write. Check which boxes are still open before banking anything. The same par 4 can be a score box on one hole and a scratch on another, depending on what you have left.
Three mistakes cost groups the most. The first is chasing the miracle scores, because building a plan around a hole-in-one leaves easy menu points on the table. The second is forcing Drive the Green on a par 4 you cannot reach, though finding a few more yards off the tee puts that box and the longest-drive box in play more often. The third is filling a high box on a middling hole, like burying a routine par in your last par-5 box and killing any shot at a birdie there later.
Parzee FAQ
Can you change a box after you have written it in?
No. Every box is single-use and one-and-done. Once a hole is banked into a box, that box is closed for the round, which is what forces the hard choices on every tee.
What happens when a hole does not fit any open box?
You scratch a zero into any open box of your choice. With 18 boxes and 18 holes every hole has somewhere to go, so a scratch means the boxes that fit were already spent, and choosing which one to sacrifice is part of the skill.
How do you break a tie in Parzee?
Count the Parzee streaks first, so the player who strung the most runs together takes it. If that is still level, the fewest scratches breaks the tie.
Can you play Parzee with 2 to 5 players?
Yes. Everyone keeps a separate card and compares grand totals, and the player count does not change the rules. It runs fine as a twosome and holds up in a fivesome.
How is Parzee different from Bingo Bango Bongo?
Bingo Bango Bongo hands out three points on every hole for first on the green, closest to the pin, and first in the cup, then resets. Parzee is a whole-round game with one fixed card of single-use boxes, and a great hole can be worth very different amounts depending on where you bank it.
How is Parzee different from Dots or junk side bets?
Dots and other junk games are loose side bets stacked on top of your main match, paid out per event as they happen. Parzee stands on its own with a scorecard and a running total. The menu covers similar feats, but each one is a single box you fill once instead of a dot you collect every time it happens.
Parzee rewards the golfer who gets up and down and drives one onto the green, which is why it travels so well across a mixed group. You have two ways to keep score. Fill in the online Parzee scorecard on your phone and it saves as you play, or download the printable card below for the cart.
Print it for the cart or keep the online card open on your phone. Both use the same boxes, so a group can mix the two and still compare grand totals at the end.
Other Golf Games You’ll Love
- Draft 18 is another original where you draft which holes count toward your score, so smart selection beats raw ball-striking.
- Poker Golf is the closest cousin to Parzee’s build-a-card feel, where you collect cards over the round and try to assemble the best hand.
- Golf games for 4 players gathers 44 foursome formats for the days you have a full group
- Browse more Golf Games Hub Originals for the rest of our invented formats built for weekend groups.
Thanks for stopping by!
