4 Card Golf

This is a fun game that is mostly luck with a little skill. A good game for just being able to not think too hard so you can talk and enjoy while playing a game.

INTRODUCTION:

Golf is a card game for two or more players, in which the object is to score as little as possible, as in the sport of Golf. In front of each player is a layout of cards arranged in a square or rectangle, and players improve their scores by drawing new cards to replace unwanted cards, which they discard. Each deal is seen as the equivalent of a hole of Golf, and a complete game consists of 9 or 18 deals, corresponding to the length of a Golf course.

Players, Cards and Deal

Two standard 52-card packs are shuffled together (remove jokers), and the number of players could in theory be from two to around eight or more, though the game is said to be best for about four to six. The deal and play are clockwise.

The dealer deals four cards to each player, one at a time. Each player's cards are to be arranged face down in a square. The remaining undealt cards are placed face-down in the centre of the table to form a drawing stock. The top card of the stock is turned face up and placed beside the stock to start the discard pile. Before play begins, each player may look at the two nearest cards of his or her square layout, without showing them to anyone else. These are the only two cards a player can look at during the game.

The Play

The player to the dealer's left begins, and the turn to play passes clockwise. At your turn you must either draw the top card of the face-down stock, or draw the top discard.

• If you draw a card, you may use it to replace one of the four cards of your layout, but you are not allowed to look at the top two cards in your layout before deciding which to replace. You place the drawn card face-up in your layout, and discard the card that previously occupied that position, putting it face-up on top of the discard pile. It is then the next player's turn.
• If you draw a card from the stock and decide that you do not want to use it in your layout, you may simply discard the drawn card face up on the discard pile, and it is then the next player's turn. However, if you choose to take the discard, you must use it to replace one of your layout cards - you cannot simply put it back on the discard pile, leaving the situation as it was.

Scoring

Play ends when everyone's cards are turned up. Cards are scored as follows.

• Each numeral card scores face value (Ace=1, Two=2, etc.)
• Each Jack or Queen scores 10 points.
• Multiples of any numerical card cancel those cards and count as zero points (2, 3, or 4 of the same card for example jacks)
• Each King scores zero points.

The player who has the lowest cumulative score after nine deals wins.