Guide
How to Play Golf Solitaire
Golf Solitaire is a game of reading the board fast. Deal seven columns, match cards one rank up or down from the foundation, chain as far as you can, and turn the stock only when you must.
Play Golf SolitaireThe objective
Clear all seven tableau columns
Golf Solitaire is played with one standard 52-card deck. Seven columns of five face-up cards sit above a single foundation pile. You win the moment every column is empty — the number of cards left in the stock never matters for the win itself.
Unlike Klondike, nothing in Golf Solitaire is hidden and nothing gets reordered. Every card is visible from the deal, so the whole challenge is deciding which column to play from, and in what order, before the stock runs out.
The game is free, runs in the browser, and needs no account. Open the board when you want to play; use this guide for the rules, the two rulesets, and the habits that clear more tableaus.
The deal
Seven columns, one stock, one foundation
Thirty-five cards deal face up into seven columns of five. One more card is turned to start the foundation pile. The remaining sixteen cards form the face-down stock at the bottom of the board.
Every deal here is a fresh shuffle. Because the tableau can never be rearranged and the stock only runs once, some deals are comfortably clearable and some are not — that uncertainty is the game.
Controls
Tap, drag, or use the keyboard
Every method plays the same card onto the same pile — there is only one legal destination, so there is never a target to aim for.
Everywhere
Tap or click
Tap the top card of any column that is one rank away from the foundation and it plays instantly — there is only one destination pile, so there is never a target to aim for.
Touch and mouse
Drag
Prefer a more tactile feel? Drag a playable card toward the foundation and let go. An illegal card snaps back with a short shake so you always know why a move did not land.
Desktop
Keyboard
Space turns the stock. U undoes, H asks for a hint, N deals a new game, and M mutes the sound. Every on-screen button also has a visible focus ring for keyboard navigation.
The loop
Four moves you repeat all game
Reading the board, then choosing between these four is the whole game.
- 1
Read the deal
Thirty-five cards go into seven tableau columns of five, all dealt face up — there is nothing hidden in Golf Solitaire. One more card starts the foundation pile, and the remaining sixteen form the face-down stock.
- 2
Match up or down
Tap the top card of any column that is exactly one rank higher or one rank lower than the foundation’s top card — suit and color never matter. A 7 plays on a 6 or an 8, a 6 of any suit plays on either.
- 3
Draw when you are stuck
When no column top matches, turn the stock to flip a new card onto the foundation and try again. The stock only goes through once — sixteen cards, sixteen chances, no reshuffling the waste.
- 4
Clear the tableau to win
Play continues until every column is empty (a win) or no column matches and the stock is spent (a stuck game). Cards left in the stock when you clear the board add a bonus to your score.
Rules & scoring
Every rule that decides a move
The objective
Clear all seven tableau columns onto the foundation pile. The number of cards left in the stock does not affect whether you have won — only the tableau has to be empty.
The matching rule
Only the top card of a tableau column can be played, and only onto the foundation’s current top card, and only when the two ranks are exactly one apart. Suit and color are irrelevant. You can move up and back down the same run of ranks freely — a 5 can follow a 6, then a 4 can follow that 5.
The stock
The stock is face-down and separate from the foundation. Turning it flips exactly one card onto the foundation, becoming the new card to match against. There is only one pass — once the stock is empty, no more redraws are available in that game.
No sequencing, no empty-column tricks
Unlike Klondike, Golf Solitaire never lets you rebuild a column or park a card in a gap. A column with cards removed just gets shorter; there is no way to reorder or hide cards to set up a future play.
Scoring and chains
Each card played to the foundation is worth 10 points, plus a growing bonus for every card you chain in a row without touching the stock: 5 more for the second card in the chain, 10 more for the third, and so on. Drawing from the stock resets the chain to zero but never costs points. Clearing the tableau adds 5 points for every card still sitting in the stock.
Rulesets
Classic versus Relaxed
The only setting in Golf Solitaire is whether Ace and King connect. Pick it on the deal screen; stats are kept separately for each.
- 01 · Ace and King stay apart
Classic
The traditional ruleset: an Ace only plays on a 2, and a King only plays on a Queen. Ace and King are never adjacent, which keeps the corner cards harder to clear and makes reading the columns ahead of time matter more.
- 02 · "Turn the corner" — Ace and King connect
Relaxed
A widely used house rule: an Ace and a King count as one rank apart, so you can chain straight from one to the other. It opens up more lines and noticeably raises your win rate without changing anything else about the game.
Common mistakes
Why clearable games get lost
Drawing before checking every column
The stock only runs once. Burning a card you did not need to burn, when a tableau match was sitting in plain sight, is the single most common way a winnable deal turns into a stuck one.
Chasing the nearest match instead of the best one
Playing whichever card is easiest to see, rather than the one that opens up the most future matches, leaves deep columns buried and stalls the board later.
Forgetting that rank runs both ways
New players often play a single card and stop, not realizing the same run can be walked forward and backward — a 6 can follow a 7, and a 5 can then follow that 6, clearing three cards in one visible line.
Ignoring the chain bonus
Drawing from the stock the moment one column stalls, instead of checking whether a different column keeps the chain alive, quietly costs points every game.
- Scan all seven columns before you draw — a match you missed costs nothing, but a stock card burned by accident is gone for the game.
- Favor the column with the most cards buried under its top card; clearing it opens the most future options.
- Remember play is reversible in rank: after playing a 6 on a 7, you can immediately follow with a 5, then a 4, walking a run down or back up as long as columns keep matching.
- Chain as many tableau plays as you can before drawing — every card in an unbroken chain is worth more than the last.
- In Classic mode, treat Aces and Kings with extra care since they cannot connect to each other; plan a path through the 2s and Queens instead.
- If two columns both match, prefer the one that unlocks a card matching more of your remaining columns, not just the closest rank.
- Use undo freely to test a line — there is no penalty, and Golf rewards seeing two or three moves ahead.
Where you can play
Same game on phone and desktop
playgolfsolitaire.app runs in any modern browser with no app to install. Progress stays on the device you played on.
Desktop browsers
Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari all run the game with no plugin. Click a card to play it, drag for a more tactile feel, or use the keyboard shortcuts for the stock, undo, and hint.
Phones and tablets
The layout is touch-first. Tap a playable column card and it lands on the foundation immediately — no dragging required. All seven columns and the foundation stay on one screen in portrait, and restart is instant.
Progress on this device
Best score, best time, best move count, longest chain, games played, and win streak for Classic and Relaxed live in local browser storage. They stay until you reset them or clear site data, and they do not sync between devices.
Still stuck on a rule? Read the Golf Solitaire FAQ or jump in and play.
Play Golf Solitaire free