How to Play Golf Solitaire

A unique solitaire where the entire tableau is dealt face-up with no building allowed between piles. Success depends on strategically using a single foundation that accepts cards up or down in rank.

Setup

1. Deal seven columns of five cards each, all face up.
2. Place one card in the foundation to start the play sequence.
3. Keep 16 remaining cards as the stock.

How to play

• Only the top card of each tableau pile can be played.
• Tableau cards automatically move to the foundation when they match the building rule (one rank higher or lower, any suit), though you can disable this in Settings. You can also manually move cards if you prefer.
• For example, if the foundation shows a 5, you can play a 4 or a 6 on top of it.
• Click the stock at any time to deal one card onto the foundation.
• Continue moving tableau cards as the foundation top card changes.
• Once the stock runs out, the game ends—there is no redeal.

How to win

Objective: Clear the tableau by moving cards to the single foundation pile, which accepts cards one rank higher or lower than its top card

Win by moving all 35 tableau cards to the foundation. It's fine if cards remain in the stock when you do; you lose only if cards are stuck on the tableau with no legal moves left.

Tips

• Plan ahead to expose buried cards that will help clear the tableau.
• The card dealt at the bottom of each pile is the hardest to reach, since every card above it has to be cleared first—plan toward those early.
• Use the up-or-down flexibility to chain several plays in a row and clear more of the tableau before you run out of stock.

Play Golf free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Golf alongside 300+ other games. It saves every move as you play, so you can close the window and pick the game up later, replay any deal, and take on a new Daily Challenge deal every day. Browse every game in the Game Gallery.

Related games

More games from the Golf family:

• Trusty Twelve — Trusty Twelve races you through a single pass of the stock while you juggle twelve open tableau piles, chaining cards downward regardless of suit to keep spots open for whatever comes next.
• Bunker — A straightforward game where you use the stock to fill empty spaces and build the tableau upward by rank in any suit.
• Ants — Move all cards to four foundation piles by building up or down in any suit.