Heuchert Family rules for Nine Card Golf

Nine card 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, and players improve their scores by drawing new cards to replace unwanted cards, which they discard. The scores at the end of the play are sometimes considered as representing the number of strokes taken to play a hole of golf. 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) at the end of which the player with the lowest total score wins.

Players, Cards, and Deals

Three standard 52-card decks with Jokers are used. We've played with two, three and four players with three decks. We suspect that another deck may need to be added if there are more than five players. The deal and play are clockwise.

The dealer deals nine cards to each player, one at a time. Each player's cards are arranged face down in a three by three square in front of each player like this:

9 Cards, dealt face-down to each player

The remaining undealt cards are placed face-down in the center 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 turns any three of their layout cards face-up. After this, remaining face-down layout cards may not be looked at until they are turned over or discarded during play or are scored at the end of the play.

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.

The drawn card may be used to replace any of the cards in your layout. You may choose to replace one of the face-down cards of your layout, but you are not allowed to look at any of your layout cards 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.

NOTE: If you drew the 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 chose 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.

Ending the Play

After a player's last face-down card is exposed, each of the other players plays one more turn before the hand is scored.

Scoring

At the end of the play, any remaining face-down cards in each player's layout are turned face-up. Pairs of horizontally and vertically adjacent cards are considered to be zeroed out. A card may be used in more than one pairing (such are the case where you have three 3s in a triangle wherein the 3 in the corner would be paired both horizontally and vertically.) For example:

Eaxample with the three 3s creating 2 pairs, zeroing them all out.

The remaining single cards are scored as follows:

Each numeral card scores face value (Ace=1, Two=2, etc.)
Each Jack or Queen scores 10 points.
Each King scores zero points.
Each Joker scores -2 points.

End of the game

At the end of the play, any remaining face-down cards in each player's layout are turned face-up. Pairs of horizontally and vertically adjacent cards are considered to be zeroed out. A card may be used in more than one pairing (such are the case where you have three 3s in a triangle wherein the 3 in the corner would be paired both horizontally and vertically.) For example:

Variant rules under consideration:

i.  After turning up the three cards, you may rearrange the cards of your layout (without looking at any of the face-down cards) so as to place your face-up cards in any desired positions.

ii.  Award a negative score of -25 points, for four equal cards arranged in two columns (for example two columns each containing two sevens.)

Origin of this page

This game was originally shown to us (Leonard and Beverly Heuchert) by Fran and Linnea Bolm formerly of Escanaba, Mi. currently of Casa Grande, AZ. After playing a while and showing a number of our friends and family how to play, we realized we had questions about some of the rules. When researching them on the web (with the help of our son Stephen) we found that there was no clear set of rules. This page is our attempt to identify which set of rules we are playing and also provide links to the references we found for the card game of Golf.

Sources of Golf Rules/Variations we found on
the web

We thank John McLeod and his "Rules of Card Games: Golf" page which, in our opinion, is an excellent tour of the many variations of the Golf Card Game. We crafted much of this page based on what we saw in his write up of the game of Golf.

He has more links to variations of Golf at his page.