How to play Wolf — the golf betting game
4–6 players
Wolf is the best game in golf for talking trash on the tee box. One player — the wolf — rotates every hole. They watch the drives and either grab a partner for a team hole, or go it alone against everybody. Every hole is a new negotiation.
The rules
Set a tee order on the first hole — that order is the wolf rotation for the day. The wolf watches each drive in order and has to decide on the spot: take that player as a partner, or pass. Once the next player hits, the last one is off the table.
Pass on everyone and you’re the lone wolf — your ball against the best ball of the field. Feeling reckless? Declare BLIND wolf before anyone tees off for the biggest payday of all.
- Partner hole: wolf + partner vs the rest, better ball decides it.
- Lone wolf: one ball against the field’s best.
- Blind wolf: lone, declared before a single drive — worth a tier more.
- Ties are no blood. Nothing carries.
Scoring (dots)
Most groups play points — "dots" — with a dollar value per dot settled at the end. A common scale, and the one Swilkin defaults to: win a partner hole and every winner takes a dot. The double lives on lone holes — a lone wolf win pays the wolf two dots, and a lone wolf caught pays every hunter two.
Plenty of groups play it differently — the wolf doubling on every win, hunters earning a premium for beating a partnered wolf, blind worth triple. There’s no one true scale; agree on the first tee.
Playing with 5 (or 6)
Wolf scales past a foursome better than almost any game. With five it’s 2v3 on partner holes and 1v4 lone — the rotation just wraps every five holes instead of four. Same rules, more chaos.
How Swilkin runs it
Swilkin runs the whole thing: the wolf rotates automatically with your tee order, and after each hole you tap who the wolf took — or Lone, or Blind — right on the scoring screen. Dots tally live, every hole shows on the receipt ("Hole 7 — Mac lone"), and the end-of-round settle is computed to the penny. Every dot value is configurable to your group’s scale.
Play Wolf this weekend
One scorecard, every bet settled to the penny — free for golfers.
Start playing — it’s free