How to Play the 'Fairways Minus Putts' Game

Fairways Minus Putts is the name of a game for individual golfers who are playing normal stroke play. This game rewards hitting the fairway off the tee (and hitting greens on par-3 holes), and rewards good putting. But especially the hitting fairways part.

This is how Fairways Minus Putts works:

• On each hole, a golfer earns 4 points for a drive that finds the fairway. If your drive misses the fairway, you get zero points. (On par-3 holes, the 4 points are earned by hitting the green, with zero points if the green is missed.)
• And on each green, you subtract your number of putts from the points you earned (or didn't) back at the tee.

Example: On the first hole, Golfer A hits the fairway and earns 4 points. Once her ball is on the green, she takes two putts to hole out. Four minus two is two, and Golfer A earns 2 points for Hole 1. Golfer B, alas, missed the fairway with his drive and so got zero points. He also takes two putts to hole out, and zero minus two is -2, so Golfer is at negative two after the first hole.

So you can see how important hitting fairways is in this game. If you are terrible at hitting fairways, don't get suckered into played Fairways Minus Putts.

Only putts taken from on the green are counted. If you use putter from off the green, that doesn't count, statistically, as a putt. It is also possible to earn all four points: Hit the fairway, then hole out from off the green.

Higher handicappers who play Fairways Minus Putts might all wind up in the negative (which, for betting purposes, doesn't really matter — you are still just paying out the point differences, or playing it for a winner-take-all pot). If that is too demoralizing, you can give the golfers in your group another chance to earn points by also awarding 4 points for every green in regulation.

More golf games:

• The 'If Only' game explained
• How to play the 2-Person Best Ball format
• How the 50/50 putting game works