What is snake?
Snake, or the snake, is the little putting-green game that makes even a quiet round feel tense. Nobody wants to three-putt, and in snake it is punished twice over: you top up the pot and you get lumbered with the snake. The only way to be rid of it is for someone else to three-putt after you. On the 18th green nobody wants to be the one holding it.
How to play snake
- Every three-putt puts a stake in the pot.
- Whoever three-putted becomes the snake holder.
- The next three-putt takes the snake over and tops up the pot.
- Whoever holds the snake when the round ends pays the whole pot.
How it is settled
The snake holder on the last green pays the pot, split evenly between the other players in whole units. Any indivisible remainder stays in the snake without moving. If there are no three-putts during the round, nothing happens.
If several players three-putt on the same hole, the snake goes to whoever three-putted last. Wager Golf keeps track of who holds the snake, how the pot grows and who ends up paying.
A worked example
Say there are four of you and you agree on a stake of 50 per three-putt before the round. Every time someone three-putts, 50 goes into the pot and that player takes the snake.
Three three-putts happen during the round:
- Anna three-putts on the 4th. The pot is 50, and Anna has the snake.
- Björn three-putts on the 9th. The pot is 100, and Björn has the snake.
- Anna three-putts again on the 16th. The pot is 150, and Anna has the snake.
Nobody three-putts on the 17th or 18th, so Anna walks off the last green with the snake. She pays the whole pot of 150, split evenly between the other three. Björn, Cecilia and David each receive 50. Anna is 150 down on the round, the others 50 up each. Had nobody three-putted, no money would have moved at all.
Wager Golf counts the pot hole by hole, then works out the final balance and shows who owes whom.