Golf Solitaire

How To Play Golf Solitaire

Nine quick holes — the lowest total score wins.

The layout

Seven columns are dealt five face-up cards each. The rest form the stock, with one card turned up to start the waste — that card is your base.

Playing cards

You can play the exposed card at the bottom of any column onto the base when it is one rank higher or lower. Suit doesn't matter.

On a 7♥ you may play any 6 or any 8 — that card becomes the new base, and you keep building from there.
No wrap: a K and an A do not connect. The sequence can't loop around.
Tap a highlighted card to play it.

The stock

Stuck? Tap the stock to turn its next card onto the waste as a fresh base. There's no redeal — a single pass, so save it for when you're truly blocked.

Ending a hole

A hole ends when you clear the board or run out of moves. Then it's scored — and in golf, low is good:

Clear the board	−1 per card left in the stock
Get stuck	+1 per card left in the columns

So finishing early with cards to spare pushes your score below zero — the best kind of hole.

The round

Play nine holes and add up the scores. Your total is your round; the aim is to go as low as you can, and your best round is remembered.

Buttons

Hint — points out a card you can play (or tells you to deal).
Undo — steps back within the hole.
New round — starts a fresh nine holes.

Tip: before you play a card, look for the longest chain you can run — up and down as far as the columns allow — rather than grabbing the first legal move. Emptying a whole column opens up more cards and gets you closer to clearing the board.

Contact: Feel free to contact us with any bugs, complaints, or requests.

Release Date: August 10, 2026

History

Golf Solitaire is a classic patience (solitaire) card game that became popular during the 20th century. Its name comes from the game's scoring system, which resembles the objective of golf: the player tries to complete the game using as few cards as possible, much like trying to achieve a low score on a golf course.

The game is typically played with a standard 52-card deck. Seven columns of five cards are dealt face up to form the tableau, while the remaining cards form a stock. A card is turned face up to begin the discard pile. The player removes cards from the tableau when they are one rank higher or one rank lower than the current discard card, regardless of suit. When no further move is possible, another card is drawn from the stock.

Golf is considerably different from many traditional solitaire games because cards are not arranged into foundations. Instead, the central challenge is to remove as many tableau cards as possible by creating long sequences of consecutive ranks. The Ace and King are commonly treated as separate ends of the sequence, although some versions use different rules.

The origins of Golf Solitaire are not precisely documented. The game belongs to the broader tradition of patience games that developed and spread through the late 19th and 20th centuries. Its simple rules and quick games made it particularly suitable for casual play.

Golf Solitaire became especially well known through computer solitaire collections. Its compact layout, short playing time, and straightforward rules made it an appealing addition to early digital card-game software. Numerous versions have since appeared on computers, mobile devices, and websites, sometimes with variations in the layout, scoring, and treatment of the Ace and King.

Today, Golf Solitaire remains one of the most familiar short-form solitaire games. Its emphasis on building consecutive runs rather than completing traditional foundations gives it a distinctive character among solitaire games and makes each deal a combination of planning, probability, and luck.

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