Sources and verification

Sources consulted

• Golf (patience) (new tab) (Wikipedia, in English): setup (7 columns of 5 face-up cards, 1 starting card, 16 stock cards), removal one rank above or below regardless of suit, strict rules with no King–Ace connection and no card on a King, no second pass through the stock, traditional scoring over nine deals, easier variants
• Patience (game) (new tab) (Wikipedia, in French): terminology: solitaire, patience, tableau, stock, waste

Links accessed on 30 October 2026. Golf has no official rulebook: the rules described on this site are primarily those of the Golf Solitaire app, as read in its code; the traditional rules are cited separately.

How the examples are verified

Before each publication, a program checks the 4 example deals and every figure on the site:

• the deal is recalculated from its game code, using the same shuffle as the app, and compared with the deal produced by the app's code;
• 52 distinct cards: 7 columns of 5, 16 stock cards, 1 waste card;
• every move in the games shown is replayed and must be legal under the app's rules; scores and move counts are compared with those in the app;
• for each deal, an exact solver tries every legal sequence of moves, remembering positions already visited: it calculates the greatest number of cards that can be removed. It is implemented twice, once using the app's code and once independently, and the two answers must match;
• the rules cited (available card, adjacent rank, King and Ace, stock, end of the game, scoring system) are checked against the app's code.

Strategy tips are presented as advice, separately from the rules. The games shown were found by this program: they prove that a deal can or cannot be won, without saying anything about other deals. Found an error? Write to us through the contact page.