Golf Solitaire is one of the most elegantly simple card games in the solitaire family. Named for the golf scoring concept of trying to get the lowest possible score — in this case, the fewest cards remaining at the end of the game — it strips solitaire down to a single satisfying mechanic: building a running sequence of cards from five columns down to one waste pile, one card at a time, until either the columns are cleared or the stock runs out.
The game is dealt quickly. Thirty-five cards are laid out in five columns of seven cards each, all face-up and visible from the start. The remaining seventeen cards form the stock, placed face-down in a separate pile. One card is turned face-up from the stock to start the waste pile, and the game begins immediately — there is no setup phase, no hidden information to reveal, and no complex ruleset to internalize before you can start playing.
The mechanic is straightforward. The top card of each column is available to play. Any available card that is one rank higher or one rank lower than the current top card of the waste pile can be played onto the waste pile, which then becomes the new reference card. You build a running sequence that zigzags up and down through the ranks — 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, 6, 7 is a valid chain — removing cards from the columns as you go. When no available column card is adjacent in rank, draw from the stock to get a new reference card and start a fresh chain.
Golf Solitaire's rules are among the simplest in the solitaire family, with only a handful of specifics worth clarifying before developing strategy.
The Layout: 35 cards dealt face-up into five columns of seven cards each. All cards are visible at all times — there are no face-down cards anywhere in Golf Solitaire. The top card of each column is the only one available to play; cards beneath it become available as the cards above are removed.
The Sequence: The top card of the waste pile is the current reference. Any available column card that is exactly one rank higher or one rank lower can be played onto the waste pile, making it the new reference. The sequence can go up and down freely and without restriction. Suit is completely irrelevant at all times.
Wrapping: In standard Golf Solitaire, wrapping is not permitted — Aces and Kings are dead ends. A chain that reaches an Ace can only be continued by a 2; a King can only be continued by a Queen. Enable wrapping in settings to allow Aces and Kings to connect for a more forgiving game.
The Stock: Sixteen cards placed face-down after the first card starts the waste pile. When no available column card is adjacent in rank to the current waste pile top, one card is drawn from the stock and becomes the new reference. Unlike many solitaire games, the stock in standard Golf Solitaire is used once and cannot be recycled — when it is exhausted, the round ends.
Scoring: Cards remaining in the columns at the end of the round count as your score — lower is better, exactly like golf. A cleared board scores zero. The goal across multiple rounds is to accumulate the lowest total score.
Winning: A round is won — scored at zero — when all 35 column cards are successfully played onto the waste pile before the stock is exhausted. Clearing all five columns is the Golf Solitaire equivalent of a hole-in-one.
Golf Solitaire rewards a combination of chain planning and column management. Because all 35 column cards are visible from the start and suit is irrelevant, the game offers more strategic transparency than most solitaire variants — you can see exactly what's available, and the question is always how to sequence the removals to produce the longest possible chains before needing to draw from the stock.
Plan the chain two or three cards ahead before each play. When multiple column cards are available and more than one is adjacent in rank to the current waste pile top, choose the one that sets up the best next play — not just the first fit. Two-move-ahead thinking consistently produces longer chains and lower scores than greedy single-move selection.
Prioritise clearing the deepest column cards as early as possible. Each column has seven cards. The card at the bottom can only be played after the six above it have been removed. Columns that make no progress throughout the round become the primary source of end-of-round penalties. When two plays are equally good for the current chain, prefer the one that removes a card from the column with the most cards remaining.
Treat the stock as a bridge between chains, not a fallback. The stock has sixteen cards and cannot be recycled. Every stock draw ends the current chain and starts a new one. The goal is to draw as few times as possible — not because drawing is bad per se, but because the most efficient rounds are those where long chains remove many cards without interruption.
Identify rank bottlenecks before they become critical. Because all column cards are visible from the start, you can scan the layout for rank clusters and gaps. If four of the five available column tops are 7s and 8s and very few 6s or 9s remain visible, noticing this early lets you adjust strategy before those bottlenecks become insurmountable.
Keep Aces and Kings in mind as chain terminators. In standard Golf Solitaire without wrapping, Aces and Kings end chains in one direction. An Ace on the waste pile can only be continued by a 2; a King can only be continued by a Queen. Tracking which Aces and Kings remain in the columns helps you anticipate upcoming chain breaks.
Golf Solitaire's simple sequence mechanic has inspired several variants that change the layout, introduce additional challenge, or modify the scoring structure.
Pyramid Golf replaces the five-column layout with a pyramid structure similar to Pyramid Solitaire — cards are dealt in overlapping rows, with lower-row cards blocking upper-row cards until the cards beneath them are removed. The sequence mechanic is identical to standard Golf: rank adjacency, suit irrelevant, one card at a time onto the waste pile. Pyramid Golf is harder than standard Golf Solitaire because the availability constraints of the pyramid layout create more complex blocking patterns.
Eliminator Golf adds a bonus mechanic to standard Golf Solitaire: when you successfully clear an entire column — removing all seven cards — you receive a score bonus. The bonus creates a secondary objective alongside minimising end-of-round cards: deliberately targeting full column clearances rather than just optimising chain length.
6-Card Golf modifies the layout by dealing six columns of six cards each (36 cards total) rather than five columns of seven. The additional column provides more available cards at any point in the game, which slightly increases the frequency of chain-continuing plays relative to stock draws. The 6-card layout also changes the column-clearing geometry.
Scan all available column tops before each play. Before playing any card, check the top card of every column for rank adjacency to the current waste pile top. The most common error in Golf Solitaire is playing the first adjacent card spotted without checking whether a different adjacent card would produce a better second move.
Don't break a long chain for a minor column-clearing benefit. When a chain is running — four, five, six cards played without a stock draw — resist the temptation to play an off-chain card just because it would clear a useful column position. A long chain is doing exactly what Golf Solitaire strategy calls for.
Use the opening stock card as a planning signal. The card drawn to start the waste pile before any column cards are played tells you the starting rank of your first chain. Before playing anything, note that starting rank and scan the columns to identify which available column tops are adjacent to it and what the second-move options look like.
Track how many stock cards remain. With sixteen stock cards and thirty-five column cards to clear, the stock is the binding constraint. Tracking remaining stock cards gives you an accurate read on whether the round is on pace for a low score or whether aggressive chain optimisation is needed.
In multi-round play, prioritise avoiding blowout rounds over chasing perfect rounds. Golf Solitaire's cumulative scoring means a single disastrous round can undermine several excellent rounds. When a round is clearly going badly, shift strategy toward damage limitation rather than perfection.
Golf Solitaire uses a standard 52-card deck. 35 cards are dealt face-up into five columns of seven cards each. The remaining 17 cards form the stock — one is immediately flipped to start the waste pile, leaving 16 in the draw pile.
No. In standard Golf Solitaire, the stock is drawn once through and cannot be recycled. When the stock is exhausted, the round ends and any cards remaining in the columns count against your score. This is what makes every stock card precious.
Suit is completely irrelevant in Golf Solitaire. Only the rank of the card matters — any card that is one rank higher or lower than the current waste pile top can be played, regardless of its suit. This simplicity is part of what makes Golf Solitaire so accessible.
A score of zero — clearing all 35 column cards — is a perfect round. In practice, scores between 0 and 5 cards remaining are considered excellent. Scores of 10 or fewer are solid. Higher scores indicate the round went badly and the deal was difficult to solve.
Wrapping means that Aces and Kings can connect to each other — an Ace can be played on a King and a King can be played on an Ace. In standard Golf Solitaire without wrapping, these are dead ends. Enabling wrapping significantly increases the win rate by allowing chains to continue through rank boundaries.
Each card remaining in the columns at the end of the round counts as one penalty point — exactly like penalty strokes in actual golf. A cleared board scores zero. When playing multiple rounds, scores are added together and the player with the lowest total score wins.
A single round of Golf Solitaire typically takes between three and eight minutes, depending on how carefully you plan each move. The game plays quickly because every move is either a card play or a stock draw — there are no complex multi-card maneuvers to execute.
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