Best Ball Golf: Rules, Format and How to Run It

Best ball is a team format where every player plays their own ball from tee to green, and the lowest score on the team counts for the hole. If your partner makes a 4 and you make a 6, the team has a 4. Teams are usually two or four players, and the format is played either as stroke play against the whole field or as match play against another team.

It is not a scramble. Everyone plays every shot of their own ball, and everyone keeps their own handicap. That is why best ball is easier to run than most team formats. The main problem is players who show up thinking it is something else.

How Best Ball Works

Each player plays their own ball for the whole hole, the same as a normal round. When everyone on the team has holed out, or picked up because they can’t help the team score, the lowest score on the team becomes the team score for the hole. The higher scores are thrown out.

A few details change from event to event, and each one should be settled before the round:

• Team size. Two players is the classic setup. Four-player teams are common in tournaments and outings.
• How many scores count. With two players, it’s the lower of the two. With four players, some events count the single best score and others count the best two.
• Gross or net. Net best ball applies each player’s handicap strokes first, then takes the lowest net score on the team. Gross ignores handicaps.
• Stroke play or match play. In stroke play, the team adds up its hole scores and is ranked against the field. In match play, each hole is won, lost or halved against the opposing team.

Players pick up when they can’t help the team. Once a partner has made a 3 and you’re already at 5 with a putt left, there is no reason to finish the hole, which keeps the round moving.

Best Ball vs Scramble

Plenty of people use the two names as if they mean the same thing. They don’t.

In a scramble, the team plays one ball. Everyone hits a tee shot, the team picks the best one, and everyone plays their next shot from that spot, repeating until the ball is holed. In best ball, nobody picks anything. Four players means four balls in play, four scores, and the lowest one counts.

	Best ball	Scramble
Balls in play per team	One per player	One for the team
Shots	Each player hits every shot of their own ball	Everyone hits from the chosen spot
Handicaps	Each player’s own	A team handicap, usually a percentage of each player’s
Team score per hole	Lowest individual score	The one team score

The handicap row is the practical difference for a commissioner. A scramble needs a team handicap formula, and the scramble guide covers the common ones. Best ball uses the handicaps your players already have.

Best Ball vs Four-Ball

In the Rules of Golf, four-ball is two partners who each play their own ball, with the lower score counting, in either match play or stroke play. Best ball is the looser term. It covers teams of any size and shows up in stroke play events as often as match play.

If you are running two-person teams in match play, you are running four-ball, and the four-ball guide covers match play scoring, strokes and the rules that change. Everything on this page applies to both. Neither is the same as alternate shot, where partners share one ball and take turns hitting it. The alternate shot guide covers that format.

Handicaps in Best Ball

Every player plays off their own handicap, which is why best ball works for teams with a mix of abilities. Strokes go on the hardest holes by stroke index, and the team score on each hole is the lowest net score.

The World Handicap System recommends 90% of course handicap for four-ball match play and 85% for four-ball stroke play. Many leagues skip the reduction and use full handicaps. Either works if everyone knows which one before the round. In match play, many events also play off the lowest handicap in the match, so the best player plays scratch and everyone else gets the difference. The four-ball guide walks through both methods.

Playing nine holes instead of 18

A nine-hole event needs adjusted handicaps. The usual method is to halve the 18-hole course handicap and round, then give strokes on the hardest holes of the nine being played. This is where the arguments start. Do you round up or down? Do you use a nine-hole index? Do the front and back nines play differently? Any method works if everyone uses the same one, so write it down before anyone tees off.

A Best Ball Scorecard Example

A two-person team playing nine holes, net best ball. Dan’s nine-hole handicap is 4 and Mike’s is 6. Dan gets strokes on holes 1, 4, 6 and 9. Mike gets those four plus holes 5 and 8.

Hole	Par	Dan gross	Dan net	Mike gross	Mike net	Team
1	4	5	4	6	5	4
2	4	4	4	5	5	4
3	3	3	3	4	4	3
4	5	6	5	5	4	4
5	4	5	5	5	4	4
6	4	4	3	6	5	3
7	3	4	4	3	3	3
8	5	6	6	6	5	5
9	4	4	3	5	4	3
Total	36					33

The team’s net score is 33, three under par. On hole 5, both players made a 5, but only Mike gets a stroke there, so his net 4 is the team score. In match play, the same card is compared hole by hole against the other team’s lowest net score.

Running Best Ball for a Large Group

Best ball is one of the easier team formats to run. There is no team handicap formula, no ball selection to police and no one arguing about whose drive was used. Against the field, it is simpler still: collect the cards, take the lowest net score on each hole, add them up.

Communication is the biggest challenge. In any group, half the players will have one idea of what best ball is and the other half will be wrong, and plenty of them think it is another name for a scramble. Put the format on the tee sheet, on a sign in each cart, in the message that goes out the day before, and say it again on the first tee. One line covers it: how many balls are in play, how many scores count, and what handicap allowance applies.

Match play adds bookkeeping. Each match needs its own stroke allocation worked out before the round, and someone has to track hole-by-hole status for every match on the course. With ten teams, that is five matches running at once.

Decide how teams are formed. Drawn at random, chosen by the players, or balanced by handicap each give a different kind of event. Pick one and say so in the invitation.

How We Run Best Ball on the Mulligan Tour

The Mulligan Tour’s best ball events are two-person teams in match play. They are usually invitation only, so the field is small, up to 20 players, or ten teams.

Match play is what makes them more complex than a stroke play best ball. Each match has its own strokes and its own running status. We also play nine holes instead of 18, so the handicaps have to be adjusted, and there is always a little discussion about how.

Format confusion is the thing I see most. I heard from people I play with about an event where most of the groups played best ball correctly, but one group didn’t read the tee sheet and thought it was a scramble. Twelve groups played best ball and one played a scramble. The scramble team had the lowest score and wanted it to count. Someone pointed out that the format was written on the tee sheet, so the team had no case. Writing the format down in one obvious place is the cheapest way to prevent that argument.

Running Best Ball in LeaderBoard Caddie

Best ball is one of the formats in LeaderBoard Caddie’s format dropdown, for teams or individuals. Each player keeps their own handicap and the app works out the lowest net score on each hole, so nobody is doing it on the back of a scorecard. The features page lists the full set of formats.

FAQ

What is the difference between best ball and better ball? Better ball is the name for two-player teams, since one score is the “better” of the two. It is the same format as two-person best ball and four-ball. The term is more common in British golf.

How many scores count in a four-player best ball? It depends on the event. Many count only the single best score on each hole. Others count the best two, which rewards a team where everyone plays well. Decide before the round and put it on the tee sheet.

How do you break ties in a best ball tournament? In stroke play, a common ladder is the lowest net score over the last nine holes, then the last six, the last three and finally the 18th hole. Nine-hole events usually start at the last three holes. In match play, the teams play extra holes until one team wins a hole. Publish the method before the event.

Can you play best ball as Stableford? Yes. Each player scores Stableford points on every hole using their own handicap, and the team takes the higher point total of the two on each hole. The Stableford guide explains the point values.

Is best ball a good format for a weekly league? It works well when players pair up for the night. It uses the handicaps you already track, so there is no team handicap math. The extra work is forming the teams each week, so many leagues keep the same partners all season.