Welcome to Puzz Puzz Golf, the internet's premier mini golf puzzle hunting experience!

Basic Rules

Puzz Puzz Golf is a puzzle hunt with a unique set of rules. As you might expect, it uses golf scoring - the lower your score, the better.

This hunt contains 27 puzzles, split across 9 Holes. There are also two metapuzzles - they are not associated in any way with the Hole structure, and there will be a clear indication of which puzzles correspond to which metapuzzles.

Every time you submit a guess via the answer checker, your score will increase by the number of characters in your submission (excluding whitespace). To proceed from one Hole to the next, you only need to submit the answer to one puzzle from that Hole. If you're trying to play for optimal score, you'll want to submit only the shortest answers.

This means that to unlock the 9th Hole, you will only need to submit 8 answers - one from each of the first 8 Holes. In theory, to finish the entire hunt you will only need to use the answer checker 11 times - once for each Hole, and twice for the two metapuzzle answers.

Navigation

The header contains links to the most recent Hole you've unlocked, as well as a full list of puzzles. Whenever you're on a Hole page, you'll also notice a red banner at the bottom of your screen. Clicking on it will bring up your Score Card, which will show you your current score, and has links to all the Holes you've unlocked thus far.

Score Board

Until you've completed the hunt by solving both metapuzzles, the score board will not show you scores, only what Hole other teams are on. This is to prevent leaking information about potential puzzle answer lengths. Once you have completed the hunt, you will have the option to publish your score to the leaderboard. If you choose to publish your score, you will then be able to see all the scores from other teams who opted to publish their scores.

Answers

Every answer in this hunt will consist entirely of letters (i.e. no numbers or special characters). In the event that an answer consists of multiple words, or is something like a first and last name, all white space will be stripped from the answer before submission. If you try to submit an answer with non-letter characters, those will also be stripped before submission. By way of example, if you submit the answer RED HERRING, it will be treated as REDHERRING, worth 10 strokes. If you submit the answer EMPTY-HANDED, it will be treated as EMPTYHANDED, worth 11 strokes.

Mulligans

Certain puzzles will have certain phrases or words that I've marked as Mulligans. If you submit a guess I've determined is Mulligan-worthy, your score will not be increased, and you'll be informed that submission was a Mulligan, along with a message like "This is a clue phrase" or "You need to keep going". These are usually clue phrases or some intermediate puzzle step where you're on the right path, but have missed a step. The intent behind this is to not punish you for mistaking a clue phrase for an answer, or neglecting to add some final twist to a word.

Notes, Hypotheses, and Comments

In addition to the answer checker, each puzzle has two other text inputs - a Notes field, and a Hypothesis field. The Notes field is a large text input for you to write down thoughts to save for later or potentially allow a teammate to pick up where you left off.

The Hypothesis field is a smaller input where you can write down your hypothesized answer to a puzzle without using the answer checker and adding to your score. When you solve a puzzle, the answer to that puzzle will be listed alongside links to that puzzle throughout the site (i.e. on the Hole page and List of Puzzles page). If you record a Hypothesis for a puzzle, that will also be listed alongside links to the puzzle, but in a different font. This is to help you track answers across the whole hunt even though you might only submit answers to a few puzzles.

After you solve a puzzle, you will also have access to a Comment field where you can write whatever comments you want and see comments other people have written about that puzzle. Please do not spoil other puzzles in the comments! If you're going to comment, please keep those comments specific to the puzzle the comment field is on.

After you finish the whole Hunt (by solving both metapuzzles) you will have access to the comments on every puzzle, even if you didn't submit an answer to them. This is just for fun. I reserve the right to remove comments for any reason.

Final Rules

No running
Don't swing your putter above your hips
Stay out of the water features
Have fun!