How skins payouts work
One skin on every hole. The lowest score, alone, wins it.
If two or more players tie for low, nobody wins and the skin rides to the next hole, which is then worth two. At the end you count the skins and settle. In the round on this page, from our skins guide, 18 skins were won: 7, 5, 3 and 3. From a pot at $5 a skin that is a $90 pot with $22.50 in from each player, so the player with 7 skins finishes $12.50 up.
Paid by every other player instead, the same round swings four times as far: the same player finishes $50 up. Say which you are playing on the first tee.
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Paid by every other player
Each skin is paid to the winner by everyone else. A $5 skin is worth $15 in a foursome.
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From a pot
Everyone puts in the same and skins are paid out of it. A $5 skin is worth $5.
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Carryover
A tied hole wins nothing and its skin rides to the next hole.
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Net skins
Strokes come off the lowest handicap and fall on the hardest holes.
Agree the skin value, the payout, the carryover rule and what happens to skins left after 18 before you tee off.
Questions
How do you calculate skins payouts?
Count each player's skins, then pay by the method you agreed. From a pot, the pot is the skin value times the number of skins won. Everyone puts in an equal share and takes out the skin value for each skin they won. With 18 skins at $5 the pot is $90 and each of four players puts in $22.50. Paid by every other player, the winner of a skin collects the skin value from each opponent.
What happens if a hole is tied in skins?
Nobody wins it. With carryovers on, the skin rides to the next hole, which is then worth two, and keeps riding until one player wins a hole outright and takes them all. With carryovers off, the skin is simply not won.
What happens to skins still riding after the 18th?
Decide before you start. The usual choices are a playoff for the players who tied, splitting the skins between the players who tied for low on the last hole, or leaving them unwon. The calculator does all three.
How do handicaps work in a skins game?
Most groups play off the lowest handicap, so a 14 playing with a 6 gets 8 strokes, one on each of the 8 hardest holes by stroke index. Choose net scores in the calculator, enter each course handicap and the stroke indexes from the card, and it takes the strokes off for you.
How much should a skin be worth?
Whatever the group is comfortable losing. Work it out from the worst case: paid by every other player, a run of carryovers that puts four skins on one hole costs each of the other three players four times the skin value.