Golf Solitaire

TSBy The Strategy Desk·Published March 27, 2026

Golf Solitaire is a fast-paced solitaire card game where the goal is to clear seven columns of five cards each. Like TriPeaks, you remove cards by playing any exposed card that is one rank higher or lower than the current waste pile card — and ranks wrap around, so Kings connect to Aces.

How It Works

A standard 52-card deck is dealt into seven columns of five face-up cards (35 total). The remaining 17 cards form the stock pile, with one card drawn to start the waste pile. Only the bottom (exposed) card of each column can be played.

Click any exposed card that is exactly one rank higher or lower than the waste pile top to play it. If no moves are available, click the stock to draw a new card. The game ends when all columns are cleared (you win) or when no moves remain and the stock is empty.

Scoring & Streaks

Golf Solitaire features a streak-based scoring system. Each consecutive card you play without drawing from the stock increases your streak multiplier. The first card in a streak earns 1 point, the second earns 2, the third earns 3, and so on. Drawing from the stock resets the streak to zero. Building long chains of consecutive plays is the key to achieving high scores.

Tips for Winning

• Scan all seven columns before making a move — plan your streak
• Look for zigzag runs (up-down-up) to extend streaks
• Use King↔Ace wrapping to “turn the corner” on long runs
• Save stock draws for when you truly have no playable cards
• Balance play across columns — emptying one column frees up space

History & Origins

Golf Solitaire emerged in nineteenth-century patience literature, likely of British origin, and took its name from the scoring objective: finish with as few cards left “on the course” (in the tableau) as possible. Early printed rule sets — including references in Lady Adelaide Cadogan's 1870 patience compilations and later handbooks like Morehead & Mott-Smith's Complete Book of Solitaire — present Golf as a short pick-up game, counting the final stock as the golfer's score. Some historical texts call a particular eight-column variant “Forty Thieves Golf,” but that name is unrelated to the classic Forty Thieves patience and refers instead to the 40-card layout used in that variant. The game crossed into digital form in the 1980s and 1990s through shareware card packs and eventually reached Microsoft's Entertainment Pack line alongside TriPeaks, which is when the wrap-around rule became standard and the streak-scoring model was layered on top of the original low-score objective.

Strategic Principles

Golf Solitaire rewards patient, multi-move planning far more than its fast-click appearance suggests. Because every card is face-up, we can plan the entire game on turn one if we are willing to look. The principles we rely on:

• Plan three to four moves ahead. With all 35 tableau cards visible, partial clears can be mapped in advance. We pick move A because it enables move B, which enables move C — not because it is the highest card showing.
• Prioritize cards with more neighbours. A 7 sitting below a 6 and an 8 on adjacent columns has two immediate follow-ups. A K sitting next to two 4s has none. When choosing between equally playable cards, pick the one that preserves optionality.
• Never draw stock for a short chain. If we are about to draw stock in the middle of a two-card streak, we almost always lose value. Finish the chain or abandon it, then draw deliberately.
• Respect the wrap-around variable. When wrap-around is on, A↔K is a genuine connection. It lets us pivot around the deck boundary and rescue chains that would otherwise die at King or Ace.
• Clear the longest column first. Emptying a column removes five cards from the board in a short burst and often opens multiple ±1 transitions elsewhere. Because stock is finite (17 cards), column-emptying is our best leverage.
• Watch the stock count. Knowing how many draws remain is half of the game. When the stock is near-empty we must commit to chains; when it is full we can afford to wait for a better sequence.
• Balance column depths. Letting two columns drain to one card each while three remain at four-plus cards creates dead ends. We try to work across the tableau, not down a single column.

Difficulty & Win Rate

Golf Solitaire is one of the more stock-luck-dependent patience games. Published win-rate estimates vary from roughly 5% up to about 12% for standard rules with skillful play, and the range itself is largely explained by whether wrap-around is enabled. Solitairelaboratory.com and several academic card-game surveys report the low end (around 2–4%) when wrap-around is disabled and the draw is single-pass, and the high end (around 10–12%) once wrap-around and occasional redeals are added. The game's win rate is constrained by a structural fact: we only get 17 stock cards to bridge gaps, and the tableau has no storage mechanism — we cannot stash a card for later. If the deal scatters high and low ranks badly across the columns, no amount of planning can reconnect them. That said, within any given deal the gap between careful play and careless play is enormous. A thoughtful player often clears 25+ of 35 tableau cards even on an unwinnable deal; a careless player may stall at 10.

Common Mistakes

• Drawing stock too early. Every stock draw throws away a potential bridge card. New players draw whenever they pause to think; experienced players draw only when the current chain is truly dead.
• Playing high-neighbour cards last. Saving the 7 that sits between a 6 and an 8 for later is a mistake — it is the exact card that should anchor early chains because it has the most exits.
• Ignoring wrap-around when enabled. Some players mentally model Golf as ±1 only, which costs them A↔K transitions on every long chain. Check the variant rules before you start.
• Column tunnel vision. Focusing on clearing one column at the expense of cross-column chains wastes the game's biggest strategic lever.
• Not tracking the stock. With only 17 stock cards, knowing whether four or twelve remain is critical. Forgetting the count leads to stranded tableau cards.
• Reflex plays on the first available card. Picking the left-most ±1 match without scanning the other columns is the single fastest way to waste chains.
• Underusing long ladders. A six-card ladder (e.g., 4-5-6-7-8-9) is worth 21 points under standard streak scoring; the same cards played across three broken chains are worth much less.

How This Game Compares

Golf and TriPeaks share the ±1 sequencing rule and the streak-scoring model, which makes them close cousins. The layout is what separates them: TriPeaks scatters 28 cards across three peaks and hides 18 of them under overlapping tiers, while Golf spreads 35 cards face-up across a 7×5 rectangle. TriPeaks has more positional blocking and reveal drama; Golf has more open-board planning. Compared to Pyramid, Golf belongs to the same “discard” family but uses sequencing rather than pair-to-13 addition, which fundamentally changes how we evaluate cards: in Pyramid we count partners, in Golf we count neighbours. Versus cascade games like Klondike, Spider, and FreeCell, Golf is structurally simpler — no foundations, no tableau stacking, no alternating colours — and leans more on front-loaded planning than on dynamic decision trees. Players who enjoy the clean geometry of Golf often enjoy Accordion, TriPeaks, and the minimalist patience game Clock for similar reasons: tight rule sets, short sessions, and visible state.

Variant Notes

Golf Solitaire has accumulated a handful of stable variants over the years:

• Standard 7-column Golf. 35 tableau cards, 17-card stock, single pass, wrap-around on. The modern default online.
• 8-column Golf. 40 tableau cards, leaving 12 stock cards. Much harder because the stock-to-tableau ratio shrinks and we have fewer bridge draws.
• No-wrap Golf. Removes the A↔K bridge. Chains cannot pass through the boundary. Drops win rate by roughly half.
• Single vs unlimited redeals. Classic Golf is single-pass; some modern versions allow one or two stock reshuffles, raising win rate toward the 15–20% range.
• Relaxed Golf / undo-enabled variants. With unlimited undo, Golf shifts toward a puzzle-solving game. Useful for practice but changes the character of play.

Frequently Asked Questions

Learn More

• How to Play Golf Solitaire — Complete rules and setup guide
• Play TriPeaks Solitaire — Clear three peaks with ±1 rank moves
• Play Klondike Solitaire — The classic solitaire game
• Types of Solitaire — Explore 20+ solitaire variants