Skins is the great equalizer. Every hole is worth a prize, but to win it you have to beat the entire group outright. Tie the hole and nobody wins; the skin carries to the next one, and the pot starts to build.
One simple rule drives everything: you have to win the hole by yourself.
All 18 holes are up for grabs. Decide what a skin is worth: a fixed dollar amount, or a pot everyone buys into that gets divided at the end.
Post the lowest score on a hole and no one matches you, and the skin is yours. Skins is traditionally played net, with handicap strokes, so any handicap in the group can win a hole. The catch: beating one player isn't enough, you have to beat everybody.
If two or more players tie for low, the skin isn't won. It carries to the next hole. Now that hole is worth two skins. Ties stack, and the pot grows.
Add up everyone's skins at the end. Per-skin games pay a flat rate; pot-split games divide the buy-in pot by the total skins won. Either way, the math is simple once you know the count.
Skins is simple, until your group adds its own wrinkles. These are the common ones.
Each skin is worth a set amount, say $5. Every other player pays the winner that amount for each skin won. Simple, predictable, scales with the day.
Everyone puts in a fixed buy-in. The total pot is split by the number of skins won, so a low-skin day makes each skin worth a fortune.
Tied on net score? A player with a gross birdie beats one without. Rewards the real shot, not just the stroke.
Handicap strokes count at half value to break more ties: fewer dead holes, more skins actually awarded.
Win a skin, then prove it: you must make a net par on the next hole or you forfeit the skin. Stops a lucky birdie-then-blow-up.
With carryover, tied holes roll forward and stack. Without it, a tied hole is simply dead and the skin is gone.
FLOG tracks every skin, every carryover, and shows the pot math broken down so nobody has to argue it.
Final skins board. 8 of the 18 holes were won outright, the other 10 tied. The $200 pot splits across the 8 skins won, $25 each.
In a Nassau, a string of pars wins matches. In skins, pars get tied and carried. The player who makes three birdies and nine doubles can easily out-earn the player who shoots an even-par 72, because skins only pays the outright winner.
FLOG counts every skin, rolls every carryover, and splits the pot to the dollar, for your group and across every group at the course.