We are a group of 100+ golfers who like to play golf and plan a weekly skins game in the Austin area. Its a friendly yet competitive game with a variety of games to give everyone a chance to win. Wagers range from a low of $40 to as much as $200, so there is a risk tolerance for everyone. Prize money depends on the size of the field. We we have 24+ players, first place in a medal game can be as much as $500 and skins can range from $20 to $120 depending on how many skins there are. The goal is to provide a competitive platform for golfers of all ability levels with both handicapped and un-handicapped games. Our players' handicaps range from below scratch to 20+ handicap. All players are welcome. The only requirement for membership is that you love golf and are a person of integrity.
To join, simply register for our email list and you will start recieving our emails. Once you start getting our emails, sign up for an event right from the sign up link in the email. We welcome golfers of all skill levels.
We typically play on weekends and holidays. We play public courses all over the Austin area. We try to frequent the municipal courses to keep costs down, but with the growth that Austin has experienced over the last decade, the municipal courses cana be very difficult to reserve tee times. We also play many of the courses in the surrounding area such as San Antonio, New Braunfels, Kyle, Brunet, and Bastrop. The courses in the outlying areas are typically less crowded and cheaper. Occasionally we are able to play some private courses around Austin.
A skins game is a type of golf game where each hole has a set value (the "skin"). The player who wins the hole outright wins the skin. If no one wins the hole outright, the skin carries over to the next hole.
The minimum buy-in is $40, which includes a $10 tournament fee to cover our costs. The buy-in is split 50/50 between skins and the low-net game. There are also a number of other games including higher stakes skins, an eagle pot, un-handicapped medal play, etc. The full details of all our games can be found on The Game page.
If you don't have an established handicap, you can declare one. We can work with you to determine a fair handicap. When figuring out a declared handicap, keep in mind that a handicap is not the average of all your scores. A proper golf handicap only counts the best half of your scores and averages those scores, and none of your bad scores count toward your handicap. Once you declare a handicap, if you shoot a score that calculates to a lower handicap than your declared score, your handicap will be lowered to to the handicap calculation of your low score. Once you play with us 4 times, your handicap will be based on those 4 rounds. The more you play with us, the more accurate your handicap will be.
You can use your GHIN handicap as the initial declared handicap with us. All players in our field have handicaps that are calculated based only on the rounds played with us. The reason for this is multifold: First, we noticed that people tend to play differently when they play for larger prize money. Some people play better, some people play worse. Secondly, and more importantly for fairness, we have witnessed some players who will post higher scores to GHIN than they shoot when they play with us, and then come play with us with a higher GHIN handicap and take all the money. Sometimes this is because people just play better under tournament conditions. Sometimes people may be actively trying to manipulate their handicap in order to win big prize money. Whatever the case may be, we have found that when we only count the scores that people shoot in our game, the handicaps are more accurate and more fair.
No, there is no membership fee to join the Austin Skins League. However, each game has its own tournament fee, which covers our costs to run the league.
The low-stakes skins game costs $15 and is split between gross (un-handicapped) skins and net (handicapped) skins. For example, if there is $200 in the lo-stakes skins pot and there are 6 net skins and 4 gross skins (10 skins total), then each skin would pay $20 to the winner. The high-stakes skins game costs $30 and is gross (un-handicapped) skins only. The low-stakes and high-stakes games are separate games; a skin in the low stakes game is not a skin in the high-stakes game unless the player is participating in both games. In other words, if you are only participating in the low-stakes game and you make a birdie on the 5th hole and no one else makes a birdie (or better) on that hole, its not a skin in the high stakes game. By the same token, if you are only participating in the high-stakes game and make a birdie on a hole and no one else makes a birdie (or better) on that hole, its not a skin in the low-stakes game. For this reason, the best advice is to participate in both games. That way, if you do better than everyone else on any hole, you will be rewarded well.
The low-stakes skins game pays for "net" skins, meaning the best score on a hole including handicaps. Like a USGA match play event, we use the golf course's handicap allocation table to determine the skins on each hole. The handicap allocation table assigns a handicap number to each hole. Players get strokes on every hole that is equal to or lower than their course handicap . For example, if your course handicap is 10, you would get a stroke on the ten holes that have a handicap allocation of 10 or less.
Each week, players can choose to buy-in to the eagle pot. Buy-in costs $5. If someone makes an eagle, they win the pot. If no one makes an eagle, the pot carries over to the next week. After a carry-over, the buy-in costs $5 plus $2.50 for each week that a player missed the buy-in up to a maximum of $10 (ie: if the pot has carried over for 3 weeks, and a player missed all three previous weeks, he must pay $10 to buy-in). Once the pot reaches $400, the winner will win 75% of the pot so that the next pot will not be zero. Once a player opts-out of the eagle pot, they are out until the next pot. If a player has never played with us before and would like to buy-in to the eagle pot, the buy-in is 5% of the total pot then $5 per week like everyone else.
We have been running this game for over 15 years. We started the league with the idea of creating "the fairest game in town." The most critical part of making things fair is accurate handicapping, which we work very hard to execute. We have been improving our handicapping system continuously since the beginning. Players of all ability levels, including PGA tour pros, have told us that our game is the fairest game they have found. Over the years, we have modified the games we offer to what we have now, which has proven to be very popular.
If you have any further questions, feel free to email us at info@AustinSkins.com.