Three & Out is a two-player golf bet where you don’t earn points. You take them.
You each start with a bank of three. Win a hole and you steal from your opponent’s bank, one point for a one-stroke win, two points for two, three points for three or more. Tie the hole and nothing moves.
Empty their bank and that’s a Three & Out. They pay you the agreed wager, both banks reset to three, and the next hole begins a fresh game.
OTHER GAMES WHERE NOTHING STAYS PUT
Formats built on one stake that keeps travelling:
- Tug of War — the 2v2 version, with a marker dragged along a line and stakes that climb
- Bundle — one pot of cash for four players, lost the moment the holder makes a mistake
- Rabbit — catch the rabbit and then try to still be holding it at the end
Setting the Bank and the Bet
Two players and one dollar figure agreed between you. Two banks that move every hole need their own rows, which a course card does not have, so the printable Three & Out scorecard tracks both banks and counts the games you finish.
The wager is per completed game, not per point. The points are only the scoreboard. Five, ten or twenty dollars a Three & Out is the usual range, and expect a round to produce multiple Three & Outs. This makes it one of our favorite golf betting games.
Two similar players can run the game using gross scores. If there’s a gap between your handicaps, switch to net and take the steal off the difference between the two net scores on the hole. Our golf handicap calculator is easy to use, and our golf handicap guide has the arithmetic behind the numbers.
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How Stealing Works in Three & Out
The Margin Decides How Much Gets Stolen
Compare the two scores on the hole and move points according to the difference.
| Hole result | Points stolen |
|---|---|
| Win by 1 stroke | 1 |
| Win by 2 strokes | 2 |
| Win by 3 or more | 3 |
| Tie | 0 |
The two banks always total six. Nothing is created and nothing is lost. Every point you gain came out of your opponent, and every point you drop went straight to them.
KEEP ONE NUMBER
You only have to track your own bank. The two always add to six. Steal two when you are on three and you are on five, and they are on one.
A Bank in Motion
Both banks open at three. From there it swings.
- You win by one — 4 to 2
- They win by two — 2 to 4
- You win by one — 3 to 3
- You win by two — 5 to 1
- You win again — 6 to 0, and that’s a Three & Out
The moment their bank reaches zero, they owe you the agreed wager and the game resets.
When There Isn’t Enough Left to Take
You can only steal what remains. If your opponent is down to a single point and you win the hole by three, you take that one point and the game is over. The other two don’t exist, and nothing carries into the next game.
Cleaning Them Out and Starting Again
A completed game settles on the spot. The loser owes the agreed amount, both banks go back to three, and the next hole is hole one of a fresh contest. A player who has just been cleaned out starts even.
Keep a running count on the card. Three games to you and one to them at ten dollars a game is a twenty-dollar swing, because the money nets out at the end.
A game still running when you finish pays the bigger bank half the wager. Five to one up with zero holes left to play settles at half the agreed wager. Level at three-three, and nobody pays anything at the end.
Why a Single Hole Can End It
Two similar golfers finish most holes a stroke apart or level. Those holes move a single point. Until somebody makes an eight.
A three-point hole is a complete game on its own. From three-three, one blow-up empties a bank and the money moves in quick fashion.
You should notice that this game steals points. Points move rather than disappear, so the gap changes by twice the margin.
That is also why a lead is worth so little here. Sitting five to one up looks like a formality, and one bad hole from you turns it into two to four, a deeper hole than the one you just climbed out of.
PLAY THE BANK
When your opponent is down to one point, stop pressing. Any win at all closes the game out, and the only thing a hero shot can do from there is hand them the game back.
The winning approach is less about taking holes than never losing one badly. A bogey costs you a point, while a double or a triple can cost you a game.
That is the same arithmetic behind these scoring rules built around never making a double, where chipping out sideways beats trying to rescue par from the trees.
A penalty stroke is the cheapest way to hand over three points at once, and it’s usually what turns a one-point hole into a three-point stinger. Our guide to golf penalties covers how to handle every penalty situation on the golf course.
Since the margin sets the price, the cheapest improvement here is not hitting it further, it is cutting out the hole that costs three. That is a scoring problem, and our practice games and scoring drills are built around finding the leak that produces the big numbers.
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Three Ways to Spice Things Up In Three & Out
These are all variations you can work into the base game. Take one at a time and see how it plays before layering another on top.
Double or Nothing
A player down to their last point may declare Double or Nothing before teeing off. Win the hole and they steal two points regardless of margin. Lose it and their last point goes across and that game’s wager doubles.
It’s the only lever in the format that lets a player choose to escalate, and it changes what a one-point bank means. Being nearly cleaned out stops being purely bad news.
Different Starting Banks
A bank of two gives you a fast, violent version where any blow-up hole is fatal. Four or five stretches each game out.
Three stays the standard, and it’s the number the name is built on.
Nine-Hole Settlement
Treat each nine as its own contest. Any part-finished game resets at the turn and the player with more completed Three & Outs takes that nine.
It’s a different betting structure rather than a different game, and it suits a match where you’d rather get two results out of one round.
How Much to Put on a Three & Out
A round that completes four Three & Outs at twenty dollars is an eighty-dollar afternoon, and a run of blow-up holes produces more games than that.
Twenty is steep here in a way it isn’t across the other golf games for 2 players that only settle once at the end. Ten dollars is the number that survives a bad round without anybody going broke on the back nine. Five is a good place to start if you want to keep it more friendly.
The reference card above carries the steal table and the reset rule. Worth having open on your phone the first time you run this.
It’s a fast bet. Don’t put more on it than you’d be happy losing four times.
Have a good round out there.
