Playable Solitaire variant
Golf Solitaire
- Objective
- Move every card from the seven tableau columns to the waste pile before the stock is exhausted.
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Win rate
- Standard Golf (no Ace-King wrap): roughly 5% of deals fully clear.
How to play Golf Solitaire
A standard 52-card deck. Thirty-five cards are dealt into seven columns of five face-up cards. The remaining 17 cards form a face-down stock; the top stock card is flipped to start the waste pile.
- Play the exposed bottom card of any tableau column onto the waste pile if its rank is exactly one above or below the current waste card.
- Suit and color do not matter — only adjacent rank.
- Aces are only adjacent to 2s (no wrap), and Kings are only adjacent to Queens. There is no King-Ace wrap in standard Golf.
- When no play is available, draw one card from the stock onto the waste pile.
- The game ends when the stock is empty and no further plays exist.
Objective and winning
Move every card from the seven tableau columns to the waste pile before the stock is exhausted.
A full Golf clear usually takes 35 plays plus 5–10 stock draws. Tracking which 2s and Queens you still need is the difference between an empty board and a stuck five-card finish.
Scoring on vSolitaire
vSolitaire awards +10 for every card played onto the waste, with a +100 win bonus when the tableau is fully cleared. Traditional Golf uses penalty scoring — count remaining tableau cards as strokes — but the digital scoreboard rewards activity instead of penalizing it.
Strategy tips
- Look at the entire row of seven exposed cards before each play — a 7 might be reachable from two different columns, and the wrong choice can wall off a whole column.
- Aces and Kings are dead ends. Try to use them as part of a chain rather than letting them sit as final cards in a column.
- Build chains. Spotting "5-6-7-6-5" inside the columns lets you string a long combo off a single waste card.
- Hold a stock draw when a long chain is available — drawing breaks the chain and may not produce a better option.
- Watch for columns that block each other. The fifth card down only matters if you can clear the four above it.
Common mistakes
- Playing the first legal card you see instead of scanning for the longer chain.
- Drawing from the stock when a chain is still available off the current waste card.
- Forgetting that Aces and Kings cannot wrap — chains stop at A↔2 and K↔Q.
Difficulty and odds
Golf is approachable but rarely cleared completely. Random deals solve around 4–8% of the time; reaching a single-digit remaining count happens far more often than a true clear.
Origin and history
Golf is one of the oldest "addition" patience games in print, appearing in 19th-century European card compendiums. Its golf-style scoring (low is good) made it a favorite of competitive scoring play long before computers, and digital versions kept it popular as a casual mobile pick-up game.
Golf Solitaire in multiplayer
Golf is ideal for quick same-deal score races. Both players see identical columns and can be compared on cards cleared, time, and stock draws used.
Frequently asked questions
How do you win Golf Solitaire?
Move every card from the seven tableau columns to the waste pile before the stock runs out. Suit does not matter — only adjacent rank.
Can Aces and Kings wrap in Golf Solitaire?
Not in standard Golf. Aces connect only to 2s and Kings connect only to Queens. Some house-rule variants allow wrap; vSolitaire follows the standard no-wrap rule.
Why is it called Golf?
In the traditional scoring system, every card left on the tableau counts as a stroke and lower scores are better — just like golf. Tournament Golf players aim for "under par."
How long is a typical Golf game?
A round usually takes two to four minutes. Golf is one of the shortest mainstream Solitaire variants, which is why it works well for quick breaks and head-to-head races.