Quick Guide to the High Low Golf Game

Golfers love the High Low game for a few main reasons:

• Every golfer plays their own ball the entire round
• Whether you’re having a good hole or a bad hole, you’re always playing for a point
• It adds camaraderie and competition to your round
• It’s easy to calculate points for every hole

The biggest drawback to the high low golf game is that you can only play it when you have exactly four players. You can't do it with two, three, or more than four golfers.

Scoring a high-low golf game is pretty straightforward. Here’s an example and a high low scorecard.

In this example, both the high and low points were tied on the first hole. It’s up to you how to handle ties, and we’ll lay out the options you have for that soon. 

On the second hole, Aaron and Alex swept the points. Aaron had Team A’s low ball with a 3 while Bill had Team B’s low ball with a 4. Aaron’s 3 beat Bill’s 4, so Team A got the point. Alex and Betty had the high scores for each team, and Alex’s 5 beat Betty’s 7, so Alex won the high ball point for Team A.

On the third hole, Alex and Bill had the low scores for each team, and Bill’s 4 beat Alex’s 5, so Team B won that point. Betty and Aaron had the high score for each team, and Betty’s 5 beat Aaron’s 6, so Team B won that point as well.

When you’re playing the high-low game, which can also be called low-high, low-ball high-bal, or high-ball low-ball, it’s good to establish how you’re going to handle certain details before the round begins. Before you tee off, agree with your foursome on two things: whether or not you will use handicaps, and what to do with ties.

High low can be a great game when your group has players of all skill levels, as long as the two best players are on opposite teams. If you form the teams strategically, you may not need to play with handicaps, but you can if you’d like.

When two players tie for a high or low score on a hole, you must decide what to do with that point. You can halve it (each team gets .5), cancel it (nobody gets a point) or carry it over to the next hole where the point for that ball (high or low) will be worth two.

Adding a game like high low to your round adds excitement and interest, but putting some money behind it can take it to another level. As always, when you incorporate betting into golf (or anything) make sure it’s an amount you’re comfortable lighting on fire, because at the end of the day, somebody is going home without it.

When you’re gambling with the high low game, you can assign a value to each point. If each point is worth a dollar, each player ponies up $18 at the start of the round. After the round, each team takes a dollar for each point they earned, which is split between the two players.