diff --git a/apply.c b/apply.c
index 818f3766d95847..6726b24ee3cc1c 100644
--- a/apply.c
+++ b/apply.c
@@ -3380,6 +3380,24 @@ static int checkout_target(struct index_state *istate,
 {
 	struct checkout costate = CHECKOUT_INIT;
 
+	/*
+	 * Do not checkout the entry if the skipworktree bit is set
+	 *
+	 * Both callers of this method (check_preimage and load_current)
+	 * check for the existance of the file before calling this
+	 * method so we know that the file doesn't exist at this point
+	 * and we don't need to perform that check again here.
+	 * We just need to check the skip-worktree and return.
+	 *
+	 * This is to prevent git from creating a file in the
+	 * working directory that has the skip-worktree bit on,
+	 * then updating the index from the patch and not keeping
+	 * the working directory version up to date with what it
+	 * changed the index version to be.
+	 */
+	if (ce_skip_worktree(ce))
+		return 0;
+
 	costate.refresh_cache = 1;
 	costate.istate = istate;
 	if (checkout_entry(ce, &costate, NULL, NULL) ||