Golf Random Irritations

[Slab]

4 balls in play

Better is a comparative - better of 2
Best is a superlative - best of all

It is a a pairs team game, playing in groups of 4

However sometimes some players will mean (incorrectly) that it a four man team event. In which case it is really a 4B Best Ball as opposed to a 4B Better Ball.
See Rule 23 where it only mentions the pairs format.

That's how I'd (reluctantly) understood it but its by no means universal

& it'd be a bit of a shame if the person(s) naming it went through that process rather than just call it a pairs betterball

 

[rulefan]

Worse still, I've heard some YouTubers saying 'betterball' when they mean two-man scramble before. Presumably because they figured they were taking the better ball of two each time.

Apologies. Orikoru responded before I managed to modify my original response by adding the Definition.

See #10,679

 

[rulefan]

That's how I'd (reluctantly) understood it but its by no means universal

& it'd be a bit of a shame if the person(s) naming it went through that process rather than just call it a pairs betterball

Of course the 4 man team is not recognised in the RoG

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Not worth its own thread

4 ball better ball stableford ; can there not just be one definition/explanation to this format

Some say its a 4 person team while others say its a pairs team game, playing in groups of 4

Totally agree. It's a pairs game, the current name is rubbish. Better ball is singular, it suggests that only one ball in the group will count when in fact 2 will. It won't get changed, it's golf after all, but it is wrong.

 

[LincolnShep]

Not worth its own thread

4 ball better ball stableford ; can there not just be one definition/explanation to this format

Some say its a 4 person team while others say its a pairs team game, playing in groups of 4

Four-ball betterball is a terrible name. The "four ball" bit is totally irrelevant and anything irrelevant only serves to add confusion. If there are uneven number of pairs then the odd pair could go out with a marker - they don't need four balls in order to play. It should be called "Pairs Betterball".

 

[Orikoru]

Totally agree. It's a pairs game, the current name is rubbish. Better ball is singular, it suggests that only one ball in the group will count when in fact 2 will. It won't get changed, it's golf after all, but it is wrong.

Yeah it is strange, calling it four-ball anything just makes you think of four individual players making up a four-ball doesn't it? It should be called Best Score Pairs or something.

Four-ball betterball is a terrible name. The "four ball" bit is totally irrelevant and anything irrelevant only serves to add confusion. If there are uneven number of pairs then the odd pair could go out with a marker - they don't need four balls in order to play. It should be called "Pairs Betterball".

Yeah, agreed, 'four-ball' is superfluous in the name since if you say it's pairs most people can clock that two pairs equals four people. Pairs Betterball is a perfectly sensible name for it.

 

[D-S]

In the US they often call 4BB foursomes and foursomes ‘alternate shot’ which is perhaps a bit clearer.

 

[Slab]

Apologies. Orikoru responded before I managed to modify my original response by adding the Definition.

See #10,679

Thanks for the proper info

follow up:

Is a blob in 4 ball better ball a glob in 4 ball best ball?

 

[D-S]

We got our course re-rated back in the summertime. Most members were of the opinion that our ratings were too low, I think. It's taken about five months to get the new ratings back.

Well, they've just got lower. Gone from 117 to 112 slope off the whites, 66.6 course rating becomes 65.9. I'll now only get 12 shots in my next comp, off of 15.3. What an absolute joke!

(On the plus side I think this actually gets rid of the bogus shot we were giving in our next foursomes match, so every cloud!)

I assume you and your club’s members are real bandits when you play other courses then? I guess visitors don’t do well in your Opens and your handicap teams clean up every year ? Even more so in future.

 

[Orikoru]

I assume you and your club’s members are real bandits when you play other courses then? I guess visitors don’t do well in your Opens and your handicap teams clean up every year ? Even more so in future.

Can't speak for the other items but yes, our teams have done very well and won a few things in the last couple of years.

I want to get my handicap down this year after two years of going the wrong way, but knowing I practically have to break 80 every time now to do that is pretty demoralising.

 

[rulefan]

Thanks for the proper info

follow up:

Is a blob in 4 ball better ball a glob in 4 ball best ball?

Given that a 4 ball best ball doesn't exist in the RoG a blob is a blob.

 

[cliveb]

I assume you and your club’s members are real bandits when you play other courses then? I guess visitors don’t do well in your Opens and your handicap teams clean up every year ? Even more so in future.

As a former member there, I can confirm that the CR seems too low.
I was informed that in 2023 the Foxes (mid HCP) and Rabbits (high HCP) both did a clean sweep of the Middlesex comps. Possibly the Tigers (low HCP) too?

Grims Dyke is just a strange course that's an outlier in the way CRs are calculated. Very short, but with horrible patchy and grabby rough, and fiendish greens. Even if you've got a shot, you still want to hit GIR because it's so easy to three-putt.

 

[CountLippe]

We got our course re-rated back in the summertime. Most members were of the opinion that our ratings were too low, I think. It's taken about five months to get the new ratings back.

Well, they've just got lower. Gone from 117 to 112 slope off the whites, 66.6 course rating becomes 65.9. I'll now only get 12 shots in my next comp, off of 15.3. What an absolute joke!

(On the plus side I think this actually gets rid of the bogus shot we were giving in our next foursomes match, so every cloud!)

Most of the courses I know of that have been re-rated, have had their slopes / CR's reduced. As I understand it, virtually all courses will be 36 yards shorter on a re-measure due to the 2 club length rule on the tees.

Perhaps the remainder is due to the raters being harsher on things like rough???

 

[Orikoru]

Most of the courses I know of that have been re-rated, have had their slopes / CR's reduced. As I understand it, virtually all courses will be 36 yards shorter on a re-measure due to the 2 club length rule on the tees.

Perhaps the remainder is due to the raters being harsher on things like rough???

The slope rating baffles me. People normally explain it as the difference between a scratch player and a bogey golfer, right? Or words to that effect? But our course is death for slicers, if you go right you're dead on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th and 17th, and to a lesser extent the 13th. By dead I mean out of bounds or lost ball. And most bogey golfers slice it don't they? I'm sure the slope number should be much higher, but obviously I don't know enough about it.

 

[CountLippe]

The slope rating baffles me. People normally explain it as the difference between a scratch player and a bogey golfer, right? Or words to that effect? But our course is death for slicers, if you go right you're dead on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th and 17th, and to a lesser extent the 13th. By dead I mean out of bounds or lost ball. And most bogey golfers slice it don't they? I'm sure the slope number should be much higher, but obviously I don't know enough about it.

In my opinion, its having a linear slope between the scratch golfer and bogey golfer which doesn't quite work. Each course will have a sweet spot for the level of golfer who finds it toughest, and this is rarely the scratch or 20 index for which the course is rated.

 

[pendodave]

We got our course re-rated back in the summertime. Most members were of the opinion that our ratings were too low, I think. It's taken about five months to get the new ratings back.

Well, they've just got lower. Gone from 117 to 112 slope off the whites, 66.6 course rating becomes 65.9. I'll now only get 12 shots in my next comp, off of 15.3. What an absolute joke!

(On the plus side I think this actually gets rid of the bogus shot we were giving in our next foursomes match, so every cloud!)

Ouch.
Remind me never to play against anyone from Grim's Dyke!
Our course has a slope of 134 off the whites and a CR of .7 above par. It means that when WHS came in, I went from a handicap of around 11 to a HI of 8 point something. I reckon I still play like an 11 handicap (at best), so every time I play golf I'm already 3 shots down :-(

 

[Orikoru]

Ouch.
Remind me never to play against anyone from Grim's Dyke!
Our course has a slope of 134 off the whites and a CR of .7 above par. It means that when WHS came in, I went from a handicap of around 11 to a HI of 8 point something. I reckon I still play like an 11 handicap (at best), so every time I play golf I'm already 3 shots down :-(

It's funny, because in the old handicap system, being a member at a really difficult course benefitted you when going to other courses as you'd find them easier and have the same number of shots. Now in WHS the opposite is true.

 

[cliveb]

Ouch.
Remind me never to play against anyone from Grim's Dyke!
Our course has a slope of 134 off the whites and a CR of .7 above par. It means that when WHS came in, I went from a handicap of around 11 to a HI of 8 point something. I reckon I still play like an 11 handicap (at best), so every time I play golf I'm already 3 shots down :-(

But if your HI is 8.5, then your CH at that course will be 11, so in practice nothing has changed.

 

[cliveb]

But our course is death for slicers, if you go right you're dead on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th and 17th, and to a lesser extent the 13th. By dead I mean out of bounds or lost ball.

Pah!
You can't consider yourself a proper slicer until you've put it OOB on the 6th
(Yes, I've done it)

 

[Orikoru]

Pah!
You can't consider yourself a proper slicer until you've put it OOB on the 6th
(Yes, I've done it)

I did that the other week! We were playing into a 35mph wind though, I was trying to hit a 7 iron punch through the wind and it just turned 90 degrees right. I've also Hilary Swanked it out there as well in the past, when a four-ball were letting us play through (of course).

4th is a good one - I've now bounced it back into play off that tin roof on the right three times. Nice of them to put there really.