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

Green fees are essentially a static cost charged per person.

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 golf industry accommodation solution is a two person twin room. A group of three golfers breaks this arrangement and can mean that one of you will end under single occupancy. Clearly three people sharing the cost of two rooms is more expensive than four people sharing the burden.

In some cases we have the flexibility to sleep three to a single room, if we’re managing a budget, but we’re seeing fewer ‘triple’ rooms being offered these day. This usually represents a significant saving however if we can source one. There are two ways of typically doing it. The first involves introducing a fold-out bed into a twin room. The other involves using a higher grade suite with more space to achieve the third bed. We might also be in a position to consider ‘family rooms’ as a third solution although we need to establish the quality of the third bed. Some are perfectly adequate adult single beds, whereas others are more appropriate for a child but get marketed as ‘three’

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 so three golfers equals six luggage items. This is too much for an estate car. No ‘car’ exists that could handle this without resorting to the back-seat, and even then it’s marginal. Our third passenger could easily find themselves nursing a golf bag on their lap with clubs clanking around their ears! Don’t allow anyone to convince you otherwise

The Mercedes Vito is the workhorse of the golf industry. With nine seats including driver, and a luggage capacity for nine items. We find that it also provides a high-level of ride comfort too. Although it represents something of an over-booking for three golfers, the costs shared equally amongst the group still aren’t prohibitive. It’s a much better solution than trying to force a square peg in a round hole though and cram a car. You’ll really regret doing this by the end of a trip to try and save about £150 each

The only possible exception to this advice might be a traditional golf week in St Andrews where the only ‘full luggage’ drives we’d be making are on arrival and departure. Even then, I’m not sure its something we’d really encourage. The downside risk of under-hiring a vehicle and being unable to move smoothly is quite significant

Three-ball parties can play the Old Course through a conventional ballot application. No problem. You will be asked/ told to accept a fourth player into your booking though who has likely come through the singles ballot.

Some vendors might resist selling a guaranteed package to a three-ball party. It leaves an awkward fourth player to then re-sell. You might get around this by offering to compensate them to the full value of the fourth player in exchange for exclusivity, but it gets prohibitively expensive to do so

The smaller a group becomes, the more dilemmas the singles ballot potentially poses us.

The issue we face needn’t be one of winning or losing, but rather how we try and hold the integrity of the party together in face of split decisions

Three wins isn’t a problem. We’d cancel the course we were due to play that day and seek to rearrange as a threeball for another date. Three losses might be a disappointing outcome, but it isn’t a disruptive one. The problem occurs when we generate one win and two losses, or two wins and one loss. What do we do now?

In truth, there is no right or wrong to answer to this. It depends purely on the character of the group.

The winning player might insist on playing the Old Course, (fair enough) but in doing so they’ll probably be committing to also playing solo on the rearranged course that was cancelled to allow them to do so as well, whereas the two losing golfers will be able to continue playing as a paired twoball.

The messier arrangement might occur when we encounter two wins and one loss. Are the two who win likely to step down in deference to the one of the party who didn’t? A surprisingly high number of 2/1 winners actually offer to do so, it’s often the losing golfer who ends up imploring the two winners to play without them

Muirfield only permits bookings from fourball parties. If you are three golfers who wish to play Muirfield you’ll be prevented from doing so unless Faraway Fairways can find you a locally qualified player who is prepared to make you up to the required number. The three of you would be expected to share the guests green fees between you

Some of the more popular courses reserve the right to allocate a single golfer to your booking to make up a fourball