Your Guide to the Most Common Individual Golf Formats for All Occasions
Whether it’s a friendly outing with a few bucks on the line or the club championship, competitive golf comes in wide array of formats to suit any occasion. Let’s take a look at the most common formats we see on the course for individual events.
Stroke Play (Gross): The gold standard of golf scoring, each player competes to complete a round of golf with the fewest number of strokes. The rules are straightforward: players count each shot they take throughout the entire round. Penalties, such as hitting the ball out-of-bounds or into a hazard, result in additional strokes being added to the player's score. At the end of the round, the player with the lowest number of total strokes is declared the winner. Stroke play encourages consistency and endurance, as every shot matters and 1-2 bad holes can greatly impact the final score and cost you the round. This is how most professional events are scored and the “default” option for scoring when most people learn the game.
Stroke Play (Net): Stroke play is a popular format in golf tournaments. Incorporating handicaps adds an exciting twist to level the playing field. In net stroke play, each player's net score is calculated by accounting for their handicap so that golfers of all skill levels have a chance to compete. The player that typically wins is having the best day relative to how they’ve historically played based on their handicap rating. We’ll dive into how to calculate a handicap in another post, but net play is very common in in local events because every golfer is encouraged to participate and has a chance to win on a good day.
Match Play: One of our favorite formats in golf, match play can be extremely strategic and plays very different from stroke play. Instead of tallying up the total number of strokes over a round, match play focuses on competing to win each hole. Two competitors face off against each other, with each hole effectively being a separate contest. The player or team with the lowest score on a hole earns a point. If both competitors post the same score, the hole is halved and each receives half a point. The player or team with the most points at the end wins the match. In match play, one blow-up hole will not cost you the match. Your opponent will win a point for the hole but you can try to get it back and even the score on the next hole. This makes for exciting head-to-head match-ups where strategy, shot selection, and finding the right times to be aggressive/conservative play a crucial role in achieving victory.
Skins: This is a format that really makes things interesting and adds an extra layer of competitiveness and excitement to the round. The rules of golf skins are straightforward. In a skins game, each hole is assigned a specific monetary value or "skin." The player with the lowest score on the hole wins the skin and the prize. If there’s a tie, the skin carries over to the next hole and the lowest score on that hole would win 2 skins and their associate prizes. The carryover dynamic creates the possibility of some huge moments where a player going low on a hole after several ties can win a big pot of as the prizes accumulate, fueling anticipation and encouraging strategic shots and clutch putts. Skins games tend to be exciting and can be played using handicaps to keep things competitive for all skill levels. Definitely one of our favorites and a format that creates some fun memories on the course.
