For some reason some struggle to get their head round what foursomes golf is. Very simply it is alternate shot so one player will tee off the odd-numbered holes and the other player will tee off on the evens.
Then, from there, you play out the hole alternately. It doesn’t matter who putted out on the previous hole; one player tees off on the odds and the other on the evens.
The obvious downside is that you’re playing less golf so it probably works best as the second/warm-up round on a 36-hole day but the benefits are many.
1) The first rule of foursomes is to never say sorry. If one or both of you are off with a part of your game then it can be brutal and you will find yourselves in some funny spots. From personal experience a shank and a top with your first two shots of a 36-hole scratch competition are far from ideal. The best way of dealing with this is to make peace with each other before the round and have an understanding that neither of you are intentionally and repeatedly leaving the other one in the rough.
2) See all this as character building. You might secretly want to hang your partner out to dry but be the bigger person and get on with the next shot. It’s good for the soul to know that you got your head down and got the team back on track. Good things will come to good people.
3) Part of the fun comes ahead of the round as you try to calculate who might fancy more of the par 3s or who might be hitting into the par 5s. This is a great exercise in strategy (and probably overthinking things) but, if you do have a couple of bogey tee shots, then there’s a good chance that you might not even have to hit it.
4) Fourballs is a great game for being inclusive but it can also take ages with four players teeing off, waiting for each other on the fairway, looking for balls and four players putting out. There are four handicaps to consider and everything just takes too long. Foursomes has a brilliant pace to it and, if you do it right, you can even wait down the fairway for your partner’s tee shot (and then trudge back to the tee to hit a provisional).
5) You will focus better on every shot. There will be collaboration and plenty of overthinking on each shot but you will certainly be switched on. You’ll pay more attention to what makes a good lay up and what a putt is doing. You’ll think about what shots there are on the hole and play it accordingly. You might take on the odd ridiculous recovery but you’ll do it with the backing of your partner. And if you do pull it off there will be a collective sense of achievement.
6) What could be more satisfying than one of you finding a narrow fairway, followed by the other player locating a small green and then the first player rolling in the putt? Everyone’s played their part, every shot will have been thought through. It’s not often in golf that you can do no more and you get to celebrate these small wins with a partner.
7) This is the real beauty of the format; you have a partner. You win as a pair and you lose as a pair. One of you might dazzle and vice versa but you’re a pairing. Fourballs can rely on one player excelling or one player having too many shots, foursomes is the nuts and bolts of golf pairs.
8) It’s not a given but you really should see the line of a putt better. Most of us are very lazy in our reading of a putt and often only look at it from one angle, here you should see a putt differently. A good idea is to agree pretty quickly on how much pre-putt chat that you do want as a late entry of ‘right lip’ when you’ve got it two cups from the left isn’t going to do wonders for your hopes.
9) We all have our weakness and with foursomes these might not be shown up quite so readily. So, while we might spend most rounds, with a variety of awkward chips over a bunker, you might not face any given your partner’s skilful play. Or, of course, you might have a succession of them so choose your partner wisely.
10) You should be round in three to three and a half hours which hopefully will leave room for 36 holes. You might not be hitting the same amount of shots but you’re still getting the same exercise and opportunity to chat and you should get plenty of one-to-one time with your opponent who is also playing the odds/evens.
