Overview
Each hole is worth one skin. The player with the lowest net score, alone, wins it.
Carryovers
If two or more players tie for low, nobody wins the skin. With carryovers on, it rolls onto the next hole, so the next skin can be worth 2, 3 or more.
Paying out
Every other player pays the skin value to the winner for each skin won. Or play for a pot: everyone puts in the same amount and the pot is split by skins won.
Net and gross
Play net skins, gross skins, or both at once: a net skin and a gross skin on every hole, each with its own carryovers.
After the last hole
Skins still carried after the last hole go unclaimed by default. Or the players tied on the last hole split them, or play them off on a playoff hole.
House rules
- Canadian skins: when the low net score is a birdie and it’s tied, a natural birdie (made without a stroke) beats a net one. Two natural birdies still tie. Net skins only.
- Back nine doubles: per skin over 18 holes, a skin on holes 10 to 18 is worth twice the bet. A front-nine skin carried onto the back keeps its front value.
- Validate skins: win a skin, then make net par or better on the next hole to keep it. Miss, and the skins you took go back into the carry and ride on that hole. The last hole’s skin needs no check, and neither does the last hole played in a round ended early.
- Birdies win two skins: win a hole with a real birdie (no stroke needed) and its skin counts as two, worth twice the bet. Skins carried into it keep their value. In a pot it’s two shares.
Joining late
A carry stays with the players who built it. Someone added partway plays for every skin from the hole they join, but not for skins already carrying when they got there: they don’t pay into those and can’t win them. If they win a hole outright, they take that hole’s skin and the older carry keeps rolling among the players who built it. In a pot game they sit the pot out.