Landmines Golf Game Rules

Landmines is a SideAction Saloon original that bolts a field of booby traps onto a classic low-and-high scoring game. Post the low net score and you win points; the high net score loses them — but every hole is littered with hazards, and step on a landmine like out of bounds, water, or a three-putt and it blows up your score.

The setup

1. Agree on a stake per point — say $1 a point. Everything settles in points and converts to cash at the end.
2. Each hole runs on net scores (handicaps applied). The lowest net is the Ace; the highest net is the Deuce.
3. The whole group agrees to track the same set of landmines — the twelve hazards below. Tap them on as they happen.

What counts as a landmine

Twelve ways to blow up a hole. Most cost a point; the really ugly ones cost more.

Putt for Doh! has a twist: instead of just eating the penalty, you can throw it down as a challenge. Dare a player to make the short one — if they accept and sink it, the rest of the group gets hit with the penalty instead.

How a hole plays

1. Everyone plays out the hole. Hazards stack up as you go — a tee shot can be a Duff Drive, the next swing a Splashdown, and a careless finish a Trey.
2. When scores are in, the low net is the Ace and collects points from the field; the high net is the Deuce and pays the field. Ties split the role evenly.
3. Every landmine you stepped on is subtracted from your points for the hole.
4. Your hole total = scoring points − hazard penalties. It can easily go negative.

The payouts

A worked example

Foursome, $1 a point. On this par 4 (net scores):

• Amy nets a 4 — low score, the Ace. She collects from the field: +2 points. Clean hole. +$2.
• Ben nets a 5, middle of the pack, but found a Splashdown 💧 (−1). Net −1 point. −$1.
• Dee nets a 5 too — no scoring swing, no hazards. Even. $0.
• Cole nets a 7 — high score, the Deuce (−1), and capped it with a Trey 🐍 (−2). Net −3 points. −$3.

Amy walks off +$2, Cole limps off −$3, and the hazards turned a routine hole into a bloodbath. The lesson writes itself: it's not enough to score well — you have to survive the course.

Strategy

Landmines rewards boring, clean golf. Even a middle-of-the-pack score keeps you flat — it's the hazards that bleed you, so club down off a tight tee and take your medicine instead of flirting with the Meltdown. Watch your putting: a Trey is two points, more than most disasters off the tee. And keep the players' challenge in your back pocket — daring a shaky putter to "Putt for Doh!" can flip a guaranteed penalty onto the whole group. The hot hand still wants the low net for the Ace points, but here the smart money plays defense.

Who Landmines is for

Built for groups who think a normal Nassau is too polite. It punishes the spray-and-pray player and rewards the steady one, gives every wayward swing a price tag, and turns trash talk into currency. It runs alongside Skins or Wolf without missing a beat.

Keeping the books straight

Landmines is brutal to track by hand: low and high net every hole, twelve different hazards with different penalties, the Putt for Doh! challenge flipping points around, all converting to points and then to dollars. Nobody's reconstructing that on the back of a scorecard. SideAction Saloon tracks every Ace, every Deuce, every landmine, runs the challenges, and settles it all live — then ends the round with one screen: who owes who, automatically.