How to Play Match Play in Golf

Match play is golf's oldest head-to-head bet: forget your total score — you fight for each hole, one at a time. Win more holes than your opponent and you win the match. And with the right team format, it's four different games in one.

The basics

Every hole is won, lost, or halved. You don't add up strokes — you count holes. Whoever is up by more holes than are left wins (that's what a score like "3 & 2" means: three holes up with only two to play). Tie a hole and it's a wash. Simple, tense, and it keeps a blow-up hole from wrecking your whole day.

Four ways to play it

Match play answers "two sides, compare each hole." What changes is how each side makes its score — pick your team format:

• Singles — one on one, your own ball. The classic duel.
• Fourball — two-player teams, each plays their own ball, the team takes the better ball on every hole. The forgiving one.
• Foursomes — two-player teams share one ball and alternate shots. Pure teamwork; one loose swing and your partner's in the trees.
• Bloodsome (Gruesome) — the nasty one (see below).

Pair formats need a full foursome; with 2–3 players you play Singles.

Bloodsome (Gruesome): golf's cruelest team game

Bloodsome is Foursomes with a sadistic twist. Both partners tee off — then your opponents choose which of your two drives you have to play, and naturally they'll stick you with the worse one. You play alternate shot from there. Suddenly the strategy flips: do you both bomb driver and risk two ugly balls, or does one partner lay back so there's always a safe one? It's the best trash-talk game on this list, and the reason "Gruesome" earned its name.

Presses: winning it back late

Down and out with a few holes left? Press. A press starts a fresh match from that hole to the 18th at the same stake, running alongside the original. Lose the main match but win the press and you walk even. Presses can stack, so the back nine can carry two or three live bets at once.

Handicaps (net play)

Singles and Fourball use each player's own strokes. Foursomes and Bloodsome are different: because two players share one ball, they use the alternate-shot allowance — 50% of the side's combined course handicap, with the difference between sides given by stroke index. It's a common source of arguments, and the app handles it for you.

Why match play needs an app

Between hole-by-hole status, presses stacking on the back nine, and a different handicap formula for alternate-shot formats, "who's actually up?" gets murky fast. SideAction Saloon tracks the match live, applies the right net allowance for your format, runs your presses, and settles the money at the end. Pick Singles, Fourball, Foursomes, or Bloodsome — the app does the rest.