What is club roulette?
Club roulette is the game for anyone who wants a little anarchy in the group. On the holes you have chosen, each player draws a single club, and that club has to be used all the way to the green. The putt on the green is free, but everything else is played with whatever fate handed you. A drawn driver on a short par 3, or a wedge on a long par 4, causes real trouble and guarantees laughter.
How to play
- Decide which holes are roulette holes.
- On each of those holes, one club per player is drawn from the whole bag except the putter.
- You play the entire hole with that club, up to the green.
- On the green everyone uses their own putter.
How the pot is decided
Club roulette is settled as skins. On each roulette hole the pot is the stake times the number of players, and the best score takes the whole pot. A tie on the best score splits the pot evenly between whoever is lowest. Holes where everyone scores the same produce no movement.
The nice part is that handicap becomes almost irrelevant, because everyone is wrestling with the same random factor. Wager Golf draws the club for you and works out the pot per hole automatically.
A worked example
Say there are four of you playing club roulette on five chosen holes with a stake of 30 per hole. The pot on each roulette hole is the stake times the number of players, so 30 × 4 = 120.
On the first roulette hole, a short par 4, Anna draws a driver and the others each get a wedge or a hybrid. She reaches the green in two and holes out for par. The other three scramble their way to a bogey or worse. Anna has the outright lowest score and takes the whole pot.
Here is how the 120 divides on that hole:
- Anna takes the 120 pot, deducts her own 30 stake, and is 90 up.
- The other three each pay their 30 stake.
If the next hole is tied on the best score, no money moves there, exactly as in skins. Wager Golf draws the club, works out the net score per hole and totals the pot automatically.