Ways to Play
Nines
Nines is an individual competition, so there are no teams to set.
If you choose to play with handicaps, you can allocate them by subtracting the strongest player’s handicap from the weakest player’s handicap. The strongest player then plays from scratch while the other two play off of the difference.
The wager in a game of nines is typically set at a dollar a point for a total of $162. But how do you divvy up the pot? It works like this:
Say opponent A, the winner, ends the match with 80 points; opponent B, in 2nd place, finishes with 60 points; and opponent C, in 3rd place, finishes with 22 points.
Opponent B owes opponent A 20 bucks.
Opponent C owes opponent A 58 bucks.
Opponent C owes opponent B 38 bucks.
There are a few ways to determine who starts the game. We usually opt for a coin toss or a tee spin.
After the first hole, you can follow tee box honors, with the winner(s) of the previous hole going first. If you tie on a hole, honors remain with whoever won the previous hole.
Scoring is easy in Nines. Whoever gets the lowest score on a hole gets five points, whoever gets the next lowest score gets 3 points, and whoever gets the highest score gets 1 point. At the end of the round, the winner is the one with the most points.
What happens if there’s a tie? If one opponent gets the low score and there’s a tie between the other two opponents, the low scorer gets 5 points and the other two get 2 points each. If two opponents tie for a low score, they each get 4 points and the high scorer gets 1 point. If there’s a three-way tie, all three opponents get 3 points.
