Nobody agrees what a Lone Wolf is worth.
Wolf is simple until somebody goes alone. Then the question is what that hole pays — and the honest answer is that the published sources give four different numbers, none of them flagged as controversial, each written as though it were the obvious rule.
We read all of them to build the engine. Here is where they actually disagree and what we pay — including the one our own rules notes had recorded wrongly until we stopped reading them and ran the thing instead.
What is a Lone Wolf actually worth?
This is the one that ends rounds, and the ambiguity is sharper than it looks. Nearly every source says the Lone Wolf bet “doubles” — almost none of them says doubled against whom. Doubling the hole and doubling it against each of three opponents are wildly different numbers, and both are defensible readings of the same sentence.
$5 game, four players, Lone Wolf wins the hole
| Lone Wolf | +$30 |
| Opponent | −$10 |
| Opponent | −$10 |
| Opponent | −$10 |
Be straight about where that sits: it is the punchiest model on this list. The Left Rough’s money version — each opponent pays one wager, 3× total — is the next hardest, and ours is double that again. If your group wants a gentler Lone Wolf, set a smaller wager, because one lone hole can be worth six ordinary ones.
There is a model we like better than any of them: tiering the multiplier by whenthe Wolf commits — after seeing every drive, after only their own, or before hitting at all. It prices the risk instead of flattening it. We haven’t built it, because so far we’ve only found it in aggregator summaries rather than a source we could read end to end.
Double, per opponent. Each opponent plays the Lone Wolf for 2× the wager — so in a foursome a winning Lone Wolf collects six times the wager, not two.
Sources split four ways: Golf Monthly and Fried Egg both say the bet 'doubles', without saying doubled against whom. Golf Handicap Calculator: 2 points to the Wolf. The Left Rough scores it 4 points, but in its money version each opponent pays one full wager — 3× total. TXGA: 3 points on a 2-point hole.
What our engine does: 2× the wager against EACH opponent. On a $5 game a winning Lone Wolf takes +$30 and the three opponents are −$10 each; lose it and those numbers simply flip. It scales with the field: six men, +$50.
Does the Wolf tee first or last?
This sounds like trivia and isn’t: it decides how much information the Wolf has when they commit. Tee last and you’ve seen all three drives before choosing — the decision is nearly free. Tee first and every subsequent drive is a live pick-or-pass under pressure, because passing is final.
We default to Wolf-first for that reason. It’s the version where the rule that makes Wolf interesting — you can’t go back to a player you passed on — actually costs you something.
First. The Wolf tees off, then decides pick-or-pass after each of the other drives.
Genuinely split 2–2. Fried Egg and TXGA: the Wolf tees first and picks or passes after each subsequent drive. The Left Rough and Golf Monthly: the Wolf hits last, after watching the other three.
What our engine does: Wolf tees first — signed off 2026-08-12. Both orders are playable; the app names the Wolf and the rest is your group's business.
Can you pass on someone and then change your mind?
The whole tension of Wolf lives here. If you could pass on three drives and then take the best one, going alone would never be a decision — you’d simply wait. The finality is the game.
No. Passing is final for that hole. Once the Wolf declines a drive, that player is not available again until the next hole.
Golf Monthly; 18Birdies. This is one of the few Wolf rules with no disagreement in print.
What our engine does: Enforced by the shape of the game rather than a lock — the Wolf records one choice per hole, and there is no partial state to walk back.
Eighteen holes, four players — that doesn't divide.
People assume this is a scoring error the first time they notice it. It isn’t: 18 doesn’t divide by 4, and every published version of Wolf lives with it.
The subtle version of this bit us. Rotating by position in the player list rather than by hole number gives a different Wolf on any round that doesn’t begin at hole 1 — a back-nine round would have paid a different man than the one the screen named.
Correct, and it isn't a bug. Two players are Wolf five times and two are Wolf four times. Groups that care rotate the starting order, or stop the rotation at 16.
Golf Handicap Calculator documents the uneven split as normal. For five players it notes the same choice: rotate unevenly through 18, or end the rotation at 15.
What our engine does: A fixed rotation keyed to the hole NUMBER, not to array position — so a round that starts on the 10th still names the same Wolf the app displayed.
We're playing threes. Or fives. Or sixes.
Worth flagging because we got this wrong ourselves. Our trip engine used to require exactly four players, which meant a five-man Wolf round silently settled for nothing — no error, no warning, just no money moving. Fixed August 2026.
All fine. Wolf needs a Wolf and somebody to play against — nothing about it requires exactly four.
Golf Handicap Calculator and The Left Rough both document 5-player Wolf; 3- and 6-player games are common and unremarkable.
What our engine does: Any roster of 2 or more. The lone-wolf payout scales with the field: a winning Lone Wolf collects 2× the wager from each opponent, so a six-man game pays more than a four-man one.
The hole was tied. Now what?
Carryovers are a house rule, not the rule. They’re fun and they’re also how a $2 game becomes a $40 hole on the 17th, so if your group wants them, agree on it in the car park rather than on the tee.
It pushes. No carryover, no doubling the next hole — unless your group has agreed otherwise before you started.
Golf Handicap Calculator; The Left Rough. Agreement is unanimous here.
What our engine does: Ties push. A hole where the Wolf never recorded a choice doesn't settle at all, rather than guessing one.
Why we can tell you what we pay
Before writing the Wolf engine we wrote the rules down, with sources, and marked every place the sources contradicted each other so somebody had to make an actual decision rather than let the code decide by accident.
Then we wrote assertions against that sheet. Wolf is the one format we implemented twice — once for weekly rounds, once for trips — and the two quietly drifted apart: three times apart on a lone wolf, twice on a partnered hole. Neither was obviously broken, because each was internally consistent and nothing compared them to each other. The suite below is that comparison, and it runs on every push.
Run it yourself:
node scripts/verify-wolf.mjs→ 152 passed, 0 failed (as of September 2026)
We do it this way because a money game runs on trust, and trust in a scorer is unusual: you can’t check its work mid-round, and by the time you’d notice it was wrong, everyone has already paid up and gone home.
Or stop arguing and let it do the math.
Free, no account, no install. It names the Wolf each hole, takes the pick or the lone call, and settles the whole round to the cent when you finish.
Open the scorer →Also worth a read: the four Vegas arguments → · Banker →