A fourball party doesn’t really have any considerations with regards to green fees.

Green fees are essentially a static cost charged per person. Four players is the standard that everything is worked out to.

Four isn’t big enough to begin to get any sliding discounts for volume, the earliest this might kick-in is at nine players, and even that’s unusual. It’s just a simple, relatively straight-froward booking instead

Fourballs probably attract a greater percentage of non-golfers than we see on other booking numbers

Luckily, Scotland, Ireland, and North-West England are seriously rich for quality non-golf visitor attractions in close proximity to their top courses. You can bring non-golfers along safe in the knowledge that they won’t be missing out.

The only sub-regions where we come under pressure on extended stays are Ayrshire, and to a lesser extent Aberdeenshire. It’s possibly fair to say that south-west Ireland will eventually stretch a non-golfer too, as it requires more roadwork than the others

Otherwise we have some truly great non-golf compliments. Golf got lucky really! Many apex visitor attractions just happen to fallen well with her golf courses.

The standard accommodation solution is for a twin room (two beds, one room). The golf industry is well set-up for this. Indeed, the twin room in St Andrews is the more popular booking. A fourball party generates two-rooms under this scenario.

In some cases you might consider foregoing the breakfast? A breakfast is charged to a room as two, regardless of whether or not both occupants eat one. There’s usually little to no difference in price if you pay cash on presentation in the morning. Since there’s no guarantee that both occupants will eat every morning, there’s a potential small saving, but honestly, it’s fractional and probably not worth the confusion

Seating capacity is rarely a problem with a golfing party, luggage however is. A golfer will normally generate one significant luggage item plus a golf bag, the latter being a notoriously ‘awkward’ shape to pack. On a fourball party this means eight luggage items.

The Mercedes Vito is the workhorse of the golf industry. With nine seats including driver, and a luggage capacity for nine items it naturally lends itself to a fourball booking. We find that it also provides a high-level of ride comfort too. With the costs shared equally amongst the four golfers (or any non-golfer) the price is normally very manageable

Fourball parties can play the Old Course through a conventional ballot application. No problem.

There is a line of thought that suggests you might be able to marginally improve your prospects by splitting into a pair of two-ball applications but Faraway Fairways have never really seen any compelling evidence to prove this.

We believe that this is actually a bit of a myth based around a cross-wire between the way people communicate information and their appreciation of the precise mechanism used. It’s popularly said that “every other two ball drawn in the ballot is made up to a fourball” (that’s true, it is), but that doesn’t mean there is a separate pot of two-balls which the alternate names are drawn from. That’s not how it works.

Instead the third, two-ball drawn, is moved down the tee-sheet to join the second, second two-ball, to make up a new fourball, and the tee time they’ve vacated is then redrawn, with all the same probabilities applying again

Fourball parties are the easiest to accommodate on any advance ballot or guaranteed package too

Muirfield will only allow fourball play, or play in multiples of four up to a maximum of twelve.