Our family played lots of games together. And lots of card games, too!
In fact, when I used to traveled for work, I would buy a deck of cards that had a design on the back that featured the area.
I got the cards I used here in Moab, Utah. They have Kokopelli figures on them which is popular there.
(Please don’t mind how dingy the cards are. They have been well-used.)
This card game of Golf is best for kids 8 years old and older.
You’ll need 1 standard deck of playing cards for 2 to 3 players. You’ll need 2 decks for 4 or more players.
Make sure that you include the joker cards. They are VERY important to the game!
This game is similar to the outdoor game of golf in that the players try to get the lowest score and that 9 ‘holes’ (or rounds) are played. (A round is when players are dealt a hand of cards and they play until one person goes out.)
To play, the dealer gives each player 6 cards face down. Players arrange their cards in 2 rows of 3 cards. They select two cards to turn face up. Those two cards must be in a vertical column with one above the other. (The face up cards can be in any of the three vertical columns.)
Players cannot look at their other cards that are face down.
The remainder of the cards are placed face down in the middle of the table. This is the draw pile. Turn over one card and place it beside the drawing pile. This is the discard pile.
The player to the dealer’s left goes first. She chooses a card from either the draw pile or the discard pile. She may swap that card for one of her 6 cards or discard it.
Players need to swap out their high scoring cards with cards that have lower point values.
If the card is swapped for one of the cards that is face down, the new card is placed face up.
When all of one player’s cards are face up, the other players turn over any of their cards that are still face down. They get one more turn. However, the players cannot pick up a card that is discarded.
This is the end of one round (hole).
Scoring:
An ace is 1 point.
A joker is minus 2 points.
Numeral cards are face value.
A jack or queen is 10 points.
A king is zero points.
A pair of cards that are the same number and are in the same vertical column scores zero points.
In the picture below, the score is 6.
If a player gets 4 cards that are all of the same number (as shown in the picture below), the other players add 10 points to their score at the end of the round. The score below is 1.
Cards are shuffled and dealt out again for the next round.
Play ends when 9 rounds have been played. And, the winner is the player with the lowest score.
Be sure to add Golf to the games you play with your family!
24 thoughts on “Golf: A Fun Card Game for Families”
WE LOVE THIS GAME! WE PLAY THIS ALL THE TIME! DEFINITELY A MUST GAME ON GAME NIGHTS WITH THE FAM. ONE RULE WE HAVE ADDED, WHICH MAKES IT FUN, IS IF ALL 4 CORNERS ARE THE SAME CARD YOU ADD 20 POINTS TO EVERYONE. 4 CORNERS OR 4 CARDS NEXT TO EACHOTHER. JUST ANOTHER FUN RULE WE HAVE ADDED!
That’s a great rule! Thanks so much for sharing it!
what do you mean by face value when scoring numeral cards?
Say the card was a number 3. It’s ‘face value’ is 3 so you have 3 points. If the card was an 8, it’s face value is 8 points. Does this help?
What about card games that can be played long distance
Boy! That’s a good question. However, I can’t think of any games that you ca play long distance with grandkids. Sorry!
Sister Lewis! I found your website a while ago, and was just looking at it today and realized it was your website! Iām excited to learn these games and play with my family!
Oh Delite! You are so sweet!! I hope you have fun playing the Golf card game. We really like to play Ripple, too. You might want to check that game out, too.
This Grandma loves that Grandma’s great ideas especially the card games. We were introduced to trash (we call it garbage) by our daughter & son-in-law when they visited friends in Tennessee. The version they played included gambling and was much more complicated. I searched and found your excellent explanation of a simpler version. All the kids and adults seem to like it. I am glad I also checked out the Golf game. It will be one we will enjoy, I’m sure! Changing trains a bit, I wanted to share with you something I am going to do with one local grandchild (12) and a friend of hers. I am organizing a “RAK’D” (Random Acts of Kindness) party. Due to Covid, we won’t be able to do several suggested ideas, but we have improvised and have come up with some of our own. The website also provides cards telling the beneficiary they have been RAK’D. We will wear masks and observe social distancing. I have planned for them to offer quarters for shoppers at Aldi’s, Starbucks cards for our hardworking post office clerks and Salvation Army Bell Ringers and Wendy’s keychain tags ($2) (for free mini frosty’s) to whoever else comes to mind. There are a couple of other kindnesses the girls may do, time permitting. We will then do a fun lunch and I will “RAK” them with a small gift bag of goodies. One of which will be a deck of cards (found cute Elf cards) and your rules for Trash! They may want to play a game or two before the fun (I hope) afternoon ends. So, you have had a part in our what I hope will be an annual RAK get together! Thank you again and keep the great ideas rolling on into 2021!
Oh you have made my day!!! I love your RAK’D ideas. I didn’t know about the Wendy’s keychain tags! I’m going to add that to my list of things to do. And, I hope your granddaughter and her friend have fun doing the random acts of kindness and have fun playing Trash.
Hey, these are some really fun card games and you have explained them so well. How did you get to know about them? It’s very interesting, thanks for sharing!
We learned the Golf game from friends over 30 years ago. Our family plays it a lot! I’m glad I’ve done a good job at explaining it. Sometimes it’s hard to write directions so that others can easily understand it.
Hey Nina. This sounds fun! Just one question: when cards are dealt, are the players allowed to look at all their cards before placing them on the table, four of them face down? In other words, do you know what your own face-down cards are while playing or do you gamble on every card swap? Thanks, Janne
Hi Janne,
No, players do not look at their cards. They just take a gamble that the cards they are swapping are better than the face down ones.
Nina
This is so fun! Playing with my son now. We are wondering…do you count a negative score? He got two kings, two fives to cancel eVh other out and two joker’s on his first hand! So is his score 0 or is it -4? So fun – thanks for sharing!
Hi Katie,
I’m so glad you’re playing this with your son! How wonderful.
Yes! You certainly can get a negative score. Those two jokers add up to a -4 point and since he didn’t have any other cards that were worth any points, his score is a -4. What a lucky hand to have!
Warmly,
Nina
Looks like a fun game….I love card games….sounds like a fun game to play on family night or camping trip. we have a large family (between me and dad we have 6 boys) now to go see if I can get the boys to play cards with me!!!!
Our version of golf has the rule that if someone gets all four cards of same number side by side,up and down, that is called nineteen and that person gets no points and all other players get 19 points against their score. We do not play with jokers and o cards are turned up at beginning of game. Kings cancel a row to count as zero so it doesnāt matter what is under or above it. We will try your version and you might be 8nter3sted I trying mine. Always to switch it up. If we play with people who have other rules we play ā Houserulesā meaning āHostā rules. Great game, it is addictive and we have taught it to at least 25 different groups of people and it is a big hit and they inturn have passed the game on. It would be fun if the deck had golf pics on it with a point count on it. a ā HOLE IN ONE CARDā could be in place of the king.
What a fun version! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing your version of golf!
We play GOLF with an elderly couple in their 80’s. There rules are if I can explain this right, after someone goes out I feel the playing is over period!! They play after someone goes out and you turn your face down cards over and you have a match directly over or under a turned up card you can call them a cancel out set?? I disagree, if someone goes out that hand is over right or wrong??
Hi Frank,
You bring up a good point — one that I neglected to mention in my post. (I’m so sorry!) Our rules are like your 80-year-old friends’ rules. We don’t end the play when one player has all of their cards turned face up.
After someone has all of their cards face up, the other players turn over their cards that are still face down. Those players get one last turn. If by chance one of the cards that they turned over matches the card either directly above or under a turned up card, the score for those 2 cards is zero.
I have found that sometimes other people have variations of the rules that are different than what our family uses. (For a different card game we’d play with my mother, she would always insist on ‘her’ version of the rules — which wasn’t in the ‘real’ printed rules that came with the game. My siblings and I and our spouses simply decided that when we played with Mom, we’d use her rules, and that was okay.) Maybe you could discuss the rule differences with your friends and come to a joint conclusion about the rules for when you play the game together.
Does this help?
We do the same that the other players get one last turn then flip over the cards.
We also add that if the person that goes out doesnāt have the lowest score for that round they get 20 points added on to their score for that round.
I like how you add points if someone goes out but doesn’t have the lowest score for the round! Great idea!