How to play Trouble — the golf game where your bad shots cost you
Any group
Trouble (some groups call it Disaster, Trash, or Garbage) flips the junk game upside down: instead of winning money for great shots, you PAY for the ugly ones. Ball in the water? That costs you. OB off the tee? Costs you. Three-putt from eight feet? Everyone saw it, and it costs you. It’s the game that keeps the group laughing at exactly the moments golf hurts the most.
What counts as trouble
The classic list is short and universal — and every group adds its own. Whiffs, shanks, hitting the wrong ball, leaving it in the bunker: if the group agrees it’s trouble, it’s trouble.
- Water — a splash is a splash, penalty drop or not.
- OB — the white stakes tax.
- Lost ball — five minutes of looking, then pay up.
- Three-putt — the snake, the oldest trouble of them all.
How the money works
Set a value per incident — a dollar keeps it funny, five makes it serious. At the end, everyone’s trouble counts settle against each other: three waters against your buddy’s one means you owe the difference. The player with the cleanest card collects from the whole group.
Trouble stacks beautifully on top of a normal match or skins game — it’s a side pot that punishes blowups even when the hole was already lost.
How Swilkin runs it
Tap the 😖 Trouble pack at setup and Water, OB, and Lost ball chips appear on every hole — marked “costs you,” because in this game a tap is a confession. Add your group’s own trouble types (the whiff, the wrong ball) and Swilkin settles the shame to the penny alongside the rest of the round.
Play Trouble this weekend
One scorecard, every bet settled to the penny — free for golfers.
Start playing — it’s free