Golf Solitaire
Golf solitaire deals seven columns of five cards and turns one more card up to start the waste, leaving sixteen in the stock. Play the bottom card of any column onto the waste if it is one rank above or below the card there. Classic rules do not turn the corner — a King is a dead end and an Ace only accepts a Two. Clear all 35 cards for a hole in one.
New game deals a fresh shuffle, Hint highlights a legal move, and the three-dot menu at the end of the bar holds redo, auto-finish, today’s deal, the keyboard shortcuts and the rule set.
Classic. Kings are dead ends and Aces only take a Two. The traditional rule, and much the harder game — a King on the waste can strand the whole board.
Your statistics · Classic
- Played
- 0
- Won
- 0
- Win rate
- 0%
- Streak
- 0
- Best streak
- 0
- Best time
- —
Kept in this browser, on this device only. Abandoning a deal in progress counts as a loss, so the win rate means something.
Today’s deal
Everyone playing Golf Solitaire today gets the same deal. It changes at midnight UTC.
Track the month on the daily challenge page.
Replay a deal
Every deal is a pure function of its number, so deal #20260726 is the same shuffle on any device, any time.
Keyboard
- U / Z
- Undo
- R
- Redo
- H
- Hint
- N
- New deal (asks first)
- F
- Full screen
- Space
- Turn the stock
- Esc
- Deselect, or leave full screen
- Tableau
- 7 columns of 5
- Stock
- 16 cards, one pass
- Score
- Cards left — lower is better
- Corners
- Classic or round-the-corner
How do you play golf solitaire?
Thirty-five cards are dealt face up into seven columns of five. Only the bottom card of each column is loose. One card is turned from the stock to start the waste. Any loose card whose rank is one above or one below the waste card can be played onto it, and then it becomes the target. When nothing fits, turn another stock card. There is no redeal.
Does the Ace wrap around in golf solitaire?
Not in the classic game, and that is the whole difficulty. Nothing can be played on a King; an Ace accepts only a Two. Turn a King and you must use the stock to restart the chain. Round-the-corner golf lets the Ace bridge King and Two, so the sequence loops and chains run far longer. Allowing those extra links makes round-the-corner the more forgiving game. Both rules are in the three-dot menu; the classic one is the default.
How is golf solitaire scored?
Like golf: your score is the number of cards you failed to clear, so lower is better and zero is a hole in one. Over a nine- or eighteen-deal round, you add the scores up the way you would add strokes. That is the original scoring and the reason the game has the name.
What is the difference between golf and TriPeaks?
TriPeaks solitaire is a descendant of golf: same ±1 rule, but the board is three overlapping peaks rather than seven columns, the Ace always wraps, and scoring rewards streaks rather than punishing leftovers. Golf is the tighter, older, more frustrating game.
How do you get better at golf?
- Empty the tallest column firstCards buried under four others are the ones you will be left holding. Any time two moves are equal, take the one from the deeper column.
- Look one card ahead, not zeroPlaying a Seven on an Eight is free — unless the Seven was the only card that could take the Six you now cannot reach. Check the next link before you take the current one.
- Kings are traps on classic rulesNothing can be played on a King on the waste. Clear other available cards first, then use the stock to restart the chain after playing the King.
- Spend the stock deliberatelySixteen flips against thirty-five cards means you need chains averaging over two. A flip spent breaking a two-card chain is usually wasted.
Golf Solitaire questions people ask
- Can you play a King on an Ace in golf solitaire?
- Only in the round-the-corner variant. Classic golf treats King and Ace as the two ends of a straight line, not a loop.
- How many cards are in golf solitaire?
- A single 52-card deck: 35 in the tableau, one turned face up to start the waste and 16 left in the stock.
- Can you move cards between columns in golf solitaire?
- No. The only destination is the waste pile. That single restriction is what makes the game so sharp.
- What is a good golf solitaire score?
- Zero is a hole in one — the whole tableau cleared. Under five is a strong round on classic rules; the average across random deals is considerably higher.
The rules in six lines
- 1Deal seven columns of fiveThirty-five cards, all face up, slightly overlapping so every card is readable.
- 2Turn one card to start the wasteThe other 16 cards stay in the stock, face down. That is sixteen chances to restart a chain, against thirty-five cards you have to clear.
- 3Play the bottom card of a columnOnly the last card of each column is loose. It must be one rank above or one below the waste top.
- 4Classic rules do not wrapNothing goes on a King, and only a Two goes on an Ace — unless you have chosen round-the-corner.
- 5Turn the stock when stuckOne card at a time onto the waste. Sixteen flips and the deal is over, however many cards are left on the table.
- 6Score the cards you left behindEvery card still on the table is a stroke. Zero wins the hole.
The long version, with worked examples and the questions beginners actually ask, is on how to play golf solitaire.
Put Golf Solitaire on your own site
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