Sandies Golf Game Rules

Sandies are the side bet that turns your worst lie into your best story: find a greenside bunker, splash it out, and still card par or better. Save par from the sand and you've earned a sandy — and a piece of everyone else's wallet.

The setup

1. Agree on a stake per sandy before you tee off — typically $1 to $5 each.
2. Sandies run alongside whatever else you're playing. No teams, no rotation — every player is on their own sand watch.
3. Anyone in the group can earn one on any hole, as many times as they pull it off across the round.

How to win a sandie

It takes two things on the same hole, and both have to be true:

1. You played a shot from a bunker (the classic version is a greenside sand trap).
2. You finished the hole at par or better — the up-and-down out of the sand.

Bunkered and still made par? That's a sandy. Bunkered and made bogey? No sandy — the score requirement is the whole point. The group confirms the save and it's logged to that player on that hole.

How it plays

1. Play your round as normal. The moment a player saves par (or better) out of a bunker, mark the sandy for that hole.
2. Sandies are tracked per player, per hole, so multiple players can each earn one on the same hole.
3. Each sandy is worth one point toward that player's running total.
4. At the end, totals are settled pairwise against every opponent at the agreed stake.

The payouts

A worked example

Four players, $5 per sandy. Over 18 holes the round shakes out like this:

• Amy — 3 sandies (a real magician out of the sand).
• Ben — 1 sandy.
• Cole — 1 sandy.
• Dee — 0 sandies.

Settlement is pairwise. Amy collects the difference from each opponent: (3−1) + (3−1) + (3−0) = 7 sandies up across the field, so she wins 7 × $5 = $35. Dee, with none, pays out (0−3) + (0−1) + (0−1) = 5 sandies behind, so she's down $25. The better your sand game versus everyone else's, the bigger your haul.

Strategy

There's no pressing or wagering to manage here — sandies reward pure skill, and the skill is your short game. Practicing those splash-out bunker shots literally pays off. There's also a quirky upside to a wayward approach: if you're going to miss a green, missing it into the bunker keeps the sandy alive in a way that a buried lie in the rough never will. Aggressive players who attack pins and trust their sand wedge thrive; lay-up artists who never see a bunker simply never get on the board.

Who it's for

Sandies are perfect for groups who want a low-key, skill-based bet that needs zero setup mid-round and works for any number of players. It's a great companion game — let it run quietly in the background while you play Skins, Wolf, or Banker for the main event.

Keeping the books straight

Sandies sound simple until you try to remember, on the 18th tee, who saved par out of the trap on the 4th. Loose memories and disputed saves are how this game falls apart by hand. SideAction Saloon logs each sandy the moment it happens, keeps every player's running count, and settles the whole thing pairwise at the agreed stake — so the round ends with one clean screen: who owes who. It tracks it automatically.