Three formats, one match, four points.
6-6-6 splits eighteen holes into three sixes and plays a different format in each — usually best ball, then scramble, then alternate shot. It is the best format in golf for a group with a wide handicap spread, because the scramble carries your worst player and alternate shot punishes the pair who never talk to each other.
It is also the one most likely to end in an argument about the score, for a reason nobody writes down: a match is worth four points, not three, and the fourth is the one people forget.
| 1–6 | Best ball — both partners play their own ball, lower score counts |
| 7–12 | Scramble — both hit, play the better shot, one ball for the pair |
| 13–18 | Alternate shot — one ball, hit it in turn |
Any of the three sixes can be set to any of the three formats — the order above is just the common one. Match play runs inside each six.
We won two of the three sixes. Why is the match all square?
This is the one that causes the argument, every time. Four points are available in a match: one for each six-hole segment, plus one for the overall match. That last point is decided by adding up holes won across the whole eighteen, so a big win in one segment can outweigh two narrow losses in the others.
Run through the engine, a real example:
| Holes 1–6 | Red wins 3 holes, halves 3 | Red +3 |
| Holes 7–12 | Blue wins 1 hole | Blue +1 |
| Holes 13–18 | Blue wins 1 hole | Blue +1 |
| Overall, all 18 | +3 −1 −1 | Red +1 |
| Points | Blue took 2 of 3 segments | 2 – 2 |
Blue won two of the three sixes and the match is level, because Red’s three-hole cushion in the first six was never given back. That is the format working as intended: it keeps the back six live for a pair who lost the front.
Because the fourth point is the overall match, scored cumulatively across all eighteen holes — not a best-of-three of the segments.
What happens when a segment is halved?
A 4-point match can therefore finish 2–2, 2½–1½, 3–1, 4–0, and everything in between. Nothing is rounded in your favour or ours.
Points also bankas they are decided. Once a segment is mathematically settled, its point is awarded and doesn’t move again — so the running score you see at the turn is real, not provisional.
It splits — half a point each. Same for the overall point if the match finishes all square across eighteen.
Do handicaps apply?
This surprises people, so here is the reasoning. Two of the three sixes are already a team ball: in a scramble or alternate shot the pair produces one score, and there is no sensible way to give an individual his strokes on a ball two people hit. Those segments were never net.
That left the best-ball six as the odd one out. Scoring it net while the other twelve holes played gross meant one round settling two different ways, which is exactly the confusion this format doesn’t need. So the default is gross throughout.
If your group wants the strokes back for the best-ball six — and with a wide spread it is a reasonable ask — the toggle does that and only that. The scramble and alternate-shot sixes stay gross whatever you set, because there is nothing to apply a stroke to.
No — 6-6-6 plays gross by default, all three sixes, matches and skins alike. There is a trip-wide toggle that puts strokes back on the best-ball six only.
How many points is a whole round worth?
That is the number worth agreeing on in the car park, because it decides how much a single day can swing a trip. Twelve points a round across five rounds is sixty available; one bad morning is recoverable, which is the point of scoring it this way rather than one point per match.
Four per match. Three matches — the usual shape for a twelve-man trip — is twelve points a round.
Can we play it with three, or with an odd number?
If your group is odd-numbered and you want everyone playing every hole, a format built on individual balls travels better — the scorer will run best ball, Wolf or Nassau for three or five.
Skins is a different thing and worth not confusing with a format: it’s a side bet that rides on top of whatever you’re playing. You can have a skins pot running during a 6-6-6 round, and it settles alongside the match rather than instead of it.
6-6-6 needs pairs — two of the three formats are literally two players sharing a ball. Odd numbers work at the round level (someone sits a segment or plays as a third), but the match itself is a pairs game.
Where these numbers came from
Every figure on this page — the 2–2, the +3/−1/−1, the halved-segment split — was produced by running the scoring engine and reading what it paid, not by describing what we believed it did.
That distinction earned its keep the day this page was written. Checking the handicap rule by running it, rather than reading it, surfaced a live bug: the best-ball toggle was being dropped on its way into the match engine, so a group that switched strokes on would have had its skins scored net and its matches scored gross — the same round, settled two ways, with nothing on screen to say so. Found, fixed and covered by a regression test the same afternoon.
Scenarios above re-run and confirmed September 2026.
Or stop arguing and let it do the math.
Free, no account, no install. Set the three formats, and it tracks each segment, the overall match and the running points — across every round of the trip.
Open the scorer →Also worth a read: the Wolf disputes → · Vegas → · Banker →