The 8th is 165 yards over a bunker. Tom’s tee shot stops four feet from the hole, and nobody else is inside ten. Then he misses the birdie putt, misses the one coming back and taps in for bogey. Mike, eleven feet away on the fringe, two-putts for par. Tom says closest is closest. Mike says you have to make par. It’s a $5 hole, $15 to the winner in a foursome, and both of them are describing a real game.
Two games with one name
Plain closest to the pin pays the best tee shot on a par 3. Whatever happens after the ball stops is a separate matter. Tom wins the 8th, and his bogey is between him and his scorecard.
A greenie adds conditions. The usual ones are that the ball has to finish on the green and the player has to make par or better from there. Under greenie rules Tom’s three-putt costs him the hole. What happens to it next depends on more rules the group may never have agreed.
One par 3, four rulings
Here is everyone’s 8th, invented but familiar. Tom is four feet away on the green and makes bogey. Mike is eleven feet away on the fringe and makes par. Jess is twenty-two feet away on the green and two-putts for par. Dave misses the green short and makes bogey. Each of these is a common house rule, and each gives a different answer.
None of these is wrong. The argument on the 8th green isn’t about golf. It’s about which of four sentences the group would have agreed to if anyone had said one on the first tee.
Closest to the pin rewards a shot. A greenie rewards a hole.
What to agree before the first par 3
Two ways to keep it in GoLo
GoLo’s Closest to Pin game is the plain version with the group as the judge. Choose its holes, all the par 3s or the back nine’s, and an amount. On each one, the scorer marks the winner the group agrees on, and every other player in the game pays that player the amount. GoLo doesn’t check par in this game and doesn’t record a distance. A hole with nobody marked pays nothing, and it doesn’t carry. On the 8th, the scorer marks Tom, Jess, Mike or nobody, depending on which sentence the group agreed.
The greenie lives in the Skins game, as its Greenie option. On each par 3 the scorer flags the one player who was closest, and GoLo checks the gross score for par or better. If that player made it, they win the greenie, paid by every opponent at the skins amount. If they didn’t, or nobody was flagged, the greenie carries to the next par 3, and a carry still riding after the last par 3 is lost. A tie the group can’t separate is flagged as nobody, so it carries.
Here is an invented round with four par 3s, $5 skins in a foursome and only the Greenie option on. On the 8th the group plays it strictly: the scorer flags Tom, and his bogey carries the greenie.
| Par 3 | Flagged | Result | Paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4th | Dave | Par: one greenie | +$15 |
| 8th | Tom | Bogey: carries | — |
| 14th | Nobody | Off the green: carries | — |
| 17th | Mike | Par: three greenies | +$45 |
Mike’s par on the 17th collects the 8th’s and the 14th’s greenies along with his own: three greenies at $5 from each of three opponents, $45. Had he made bogey, those three would have carried with no par 3 left to play, and nobody would have been paid for them. GoLo nets the greenies with every other game in the round, and the money changes hands outside the app.
Say it on the first tee
“Greenies, five dollars, on the green and par to win, nobody else can claim it, carry to the next par 3” takes ten seconds. It would have settled the 8th before Tom’s tee shot landed. If your group prefers plain closest to the pin, that sentence is shorter still.
The variations, closest in two and marked approaches among them, are on the closest to the pin guide. The other bounty that starts arguments on the green has its own post. Then see one round from setup to settle-up or get GoLo for the next one.
