Golf skins calculator

How it works

Skins is a contest on every hole. The golfer with the lowest score on the hole, all alone, wins that hole's skin. If two or more golfers share the lowest score, nobody wins it. In a net game, a golfer's score is their gross score minus the strokes they receive on that hole, and strokes land on the hardest holes first by stroke index, where 1 is the hardest hole on the card.

Carryover decides what a tied hole is worth. With it on, the unclaimed skin rolls to the next hole, so that hole is worth two skins, then three, and whoever finally wins a hole alone collects them all. With it off, a tied hole is dead. Skins still carried after the last hole are not awarded, so the pot is divided among the skins actually won.

1. Net score on a hole = gross score minus the strokes you receive on that hole. Gross skins use the gross score as is.
2. A hole is won by the single lowest score on the hole. A tie has no winner.
3. Skins on a hole = 1, plus any skins carried in from tied holes when carryover is on.
4. Pot = buy-in x number of golfers. With gross and net together, each game gets half.
5. Payout = pot x (your skins / all skins won), rounded to the cent, with leftover cents going to the largest fractions first.

Half strokes cut each golfer's strokes in half, rounded once, with a half rounding up. With gross and net together the pot splits 50/50 between the two games. If nobody wins a skin in a game, its share is unclaimed: hold it for next week, or refund it in equal shares.

Worked example: four golfers, nine holes, $10 each

Four golfers play the front nine for net skins with carryover on. Each puts in $10, so the pot is $40. They receive these strokes for the nine: Pat 2, Lee 5, Sam 8 and Alex 0. The stroke index of holes 1 to 9 is 5, 1, 7, 3, 9, 2, 6, 4, 8. The table shows the net score each golfer posted on each hole, with a dot for every stroke received.

Lee wins hole 1 with a net 3. Lee wins hole 4 with a net 3 and collects 3 skins, because 2 skins carried in from the tied holes before it. Alex wins hole 5 with a net 3. Pat wins hole 8 with a net 3 and collects 3 skins, because 2 skins carried in from the tied holes before it. Sam wins hole 9 with a net 3. Holes 2, 3, 6 and 7 are ties, so their skins carry forward. In all, 9 skins are awarded.

$40 divided by 9 skins is $4.44 a skin, rounded to the cent. The payouts are Pat 3 skins for $13.33, Lee 4 skins for $17.78, Sam 1 skin for $4.45 and Alex 1 skin for $4.44. That does not come out in whole cents, so the largest remainder rule shares them out. Everyone gets the whole cents they earned, $39.98 in all, and the last 2 cents go to the largest leftover fractions: Lee's, then Sam's, because Sam and Alex tie and Sam is listed first. The four payouts ($13.33, $17.78, $4.45 and $4.44) add back to exactly $40.00.

When to use it

• After a weekly league round, to settle the skins pot while everyone is still at the clubhouse.
• At an outing or a Saturday game where one scorecard holds every golfer's score.
• To settle a carryover argument. Flip carryover on and off and see what each rule does to the payouts.
• Before changing your side game rules. Switch between gross, net and both and see who would have been paid last week.