Skins is a sprint — one hole, one winner. Stableford is a marathon — every point counts equally. Train is something else entirely: a momentum game where a brilliant streak can vanish in a single hole, and a player at zero can re-board on 14 and steal the round.

It's the game your buddies probably already play at the muni — board the train with a par, ride your streak, survive the bogeys, don't derail. As of today, Train is fully live on Buddies on the Green with automatic scoring, live momentum tracking, and a broadcast-style story strip that calls out the round's drama in real time.

The Core Loop

Train is mechanically simple in a way that lets the drama do the work.

Boarding

Make a net par or better and you're on the train. Every par, birdie, and eagle from that point on scores points. The default table is 1 / 2 / 5 — pars are a point, birdies are two, eagles are five.

A Bogey Is Free… Once

Make a bogey while on the train and you score zero — but you stay on. You're marked now. Your next bogey wipes everything.

Derailing

Two consecutive bogeys, OR any double bogey on a single hole, derails the train. Every point you accumulated vanishes back to zero. The longer your streak, the bigger the wreck.

Re-boarding

Make another par after a derail and you're back on. Fresh streak, zero points. Comeback story starts here.

At the end of the round, points × the dollar value per point = your settlement. The same pairwise math every other Buddies on the Green side game uses — no one calculates anything by hand.

Why It's Sticky

Most side games answer the question "who won?" Train answers "what's happening right now?"

Every hole creates instant tension:

• Streak holders have something to protect — every shot matters
• Marked players are one bogey from disaster — the next swing is a referendum
• Derailed players have nothing to lose and everything to chase
• Spectators get heroes, villains, comebacks, and wrecks — all in the same round

The drama isn't in the math. It's in the streak. Watching a player ride 8 holes on the train and then bogey-bogey it into oblivion on 15 and 16 is its own form of golf theater.

An Example Stretch

Default settings, NET scoring, four-player round. Here's Kendall's first eight holes:

HoleScoreTrain StateΔ PointsRunning Total 1Par🚂 Boarded+112BirdieOn train+23 3BogeyMarked ⚠️ 034ParRecovered+14 5BogeyMarked ⚠️ 04 6Bogey💥 DERAILwipe to 007Par🚂 Re-boarded+11 8EagleOn train+56 Notice the survival on holes 3–4. The first bogey on 3 didn't kill the streak — but it marked her. The par on 4 cleared the mark and saved everything. That's the rhythm.

The Variations That Make Train Yours

We shipped Train with sensible defaults that work for every group, plus a handful of house-rule variations for groups who want to crank the drama.

Streak Bonus

The most-requested option. When on, every hole you stay on the train earns base points plus your current streak length:

• Hole 2 on a streak: +1 bonus
• Hole 5 on a streak: +4 bonus
• Hole 8+ on a streak: +5 bonus (capped at the default 5 to prevent runaway scoring)

An 8-hole streak under default scoring earns 8 points. Under Streak Bonus with the default cap, it earns 33. A perfect 18-hole streak earns 93 instead of 18. The cap is adjustable up to 20 for groups who want pure chaos.

Derail Penalty

Optional extra subtraction after the wipe. Default 0, range −1 to −10. With −3 set, every derail wipes you to zero then subtracts 3 — pushing you into negative territory. Total points are floored at −10 cumulative, so one bad hole can't knock you out of the game entirely.

Albatross & Hole-in-One Tax

Independently toggleable. When on, anyone who makes an albatross or ace gains the bonus value (default 10 points) — and every other player loses the same value. Tax victims don't derail, they just lose points. HIO takes precedence on a par-4 ace.

It's nuclear-grade drama for a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Default off because most rounds will never see one. When you do, the whole field feels it.

The 🚂 Indicator and Live Story Strip

Every player currently on the train gets a 🚂 next to their name in the score-entry view and live leaderboard — same pattern as the Wolf 🐺 and Snake 🐍 indicators. Spectators glance and instantly know who's still in it.

Above the leaderboard, a live Train Story Strip surfaces the current drama in broadcast-graphic format:

• 🚂 Kendall • 4-hole streak / Bogey derails the train — leader on the brink
• 💥 Chad derailed after 6 holes / 3 players still holding the line — fresh wreck
• 🚂 Apple re-boarded on hole 14 / Comeback brewing — late-round resurgence
• 🚂 Kendall • 11-hole streak / Bulletproof — pure survival mode — heroic run

The strip hides itself completely when there's no story to tell. When there is, you get a two-second read of exactly who's hot, who's cooked, and who's one swing from disaster.

How Train Compares

GameBest forDefining moment SkinsHole-by-hole stakesCarryover pot growsNassauSteady-skill matchupsFront 9 / back 9 / overallWolf4-player partnership dramaLone Wolf declaration Match PlayHead-to-head intensity"You're dormie"Bingo Bango BongoMixed-skill foursomesThree awards, every hole TrainStreak-based momentum"Don't derail" Train sits in a different drama lane than the rest. It's not about the best player winning — it's about who can stitch together the longest run without imploding.

Best For

• Groups that love drama — Train's the most emotionally-loaded side game on the app
• Mixed-skill foursomes — NET scoring means the bogey golfer's net par counts the same as the scratch golfer's
• Late-round entertainment — a long streak heading into 16, 17, 18 is its own little movie
• Spectators — non-scoring viewers get the broadcast strip and 🚂 indicators in real time

Add It to Your Next Round

Train is live today for 2+ player rounds on Buddies on the Green:

1. Create or start a round with 2 or more players
2. Open the Side Games section on the round-creation page
3. Toggle Train on
4. Tweak the on-ramp, point table, or variations to taste — or just keep the defaults
5. Save and start scoring — Train calculates automatically from your hole scores

For the full rules walkthrough, head to the Train rules page. From there, tap Create New Round to pick how you want to play — and find out how long your train can run.