Golf Solitaire

How to Play Golf Solitaire

Golf Solitaire uses one 52-card deck. Thirty-five cards are dealt into seven columns of five, and — unlike almost every other solitaire — every one of them is face up. The remaining seventeen become the stock, with the first card turned over to start the waste pile beside it.

Only the bottom card of a column — the fully exposed one with nothing overlapping it — can be played, and only when its rank is exactly one higher or one lower than the card currently on top of the waste. Suit is irrelevant; only rank matters. So on a 9 you can play an 8 or a 10, then keep going from whatever you just played. Chains snake up and down freely: 9, 8, 9, 10, J is a perfectly ordinary run.

In this version the sequence wraps around: an Ace plays on a King and a King plays on an Ace. Many printed rule sets for Golf treat the Ace as low and the King as a dead end — we use the wrap deliberately, so the up-or-down rhythm here is identical to our TriPeaks Solitaire and long runs stay alive.

When nothing on the board can be played, tap the stock to turn a fresh card onto the waste and start a new chain. There are no redeals — once the stock is empty the hand ends. Clear all 35 tableau cards and you have holed out.

Scoring: Why It Is Called Golf

The name comes straight from the scorecard. Every card still stranded in the tableau at the end of the hand counts as one stroke — so a low score is a good score, exactly as on a golf course, and clearing the whole board is a zero-stroke hole. Traditional players deal nine hands in a row as a “course” and total the strokes, which is a much fairer measure of skill than any single deal.

The counters above the board track exactly that: cards left is your running stroke count, and the streak counter shows how many cards you have chained since your last stock flip. Long streaks are the whole skill of the game — each one saves a stock card for later.

Strategy Tips for Golf Solitaire

• Read the whole board before you tap. Every card is face up, so unlike TriPeaks you are never guessing. Trace the chain two or three cards ahead and pick the branch that lasts longest.
• Never spend a stock card you did not have to. Sixteen turns is all you get. Exhaust every legal tableau play before touching the stock.
• Dig into the tall columns. Cards buried under four others are the ones that strand you at the end. Given equal choices, play from the deepest column, not the shortest.
• Watch for blocked pairs. If two cards of the same rank sit directly on top of one another in a column, the lower one can only be reached after a detour — plan for it early rather than discovering it with two stock cards left.
• Use the wrap. Ace and King connect in both directions. A stranded King is often one Ace away from a whole new run.
• Aim for the flexible middle. Ranks around 6, 7 and 8 have the most neighbours in play; ending a chain there leaves you more ways to reconnect than ending on a 2 or a Queen.

Golf vs. TriPeaks vs. Pyramid

Golf and TriPeaks share the identical clearing rule, so if you can play one you can play the other. The difference is information: TriPeaks hides most of its cards behind the peaks and rewards fast, instinctive chaining, while Golf shows you all 35 from the start and rewards planning. Golf is the thinker's version of the same idea.

Pyramid Solitaire looks similar but plays nothing alike — it removes pairs that add up to 13 rather than single cards one rank away. And if you want a longer, heavier puzzle, try Spider Solitaire, where you build descending runs in suit across ten stacks. Our guide to the most popular types of Solitaire compares all of them side by side.