How to Play Best Ball in Golf — Four-Ball Scoring Explained
Learn how best ball (four-ball) works in golf — each player plays their own ball, only the lowest score counts. Includes a worked example.
What is best ball?
Best ball — officially called four-ball — is a team format where each player plays their own ball for the entire hole, start to finish. There's no sharing shots or picking the best spot like in a scramble. At the end of the hole, only the lowest score between teammates counts as the team's score. The other player's score is simply discarded.
How best ball scoring works
- Each player on the team plays a normal hole, entirely on their own ball.
- Once both players have finished the hole, only the better (lower) of the two scores counts for the team.
- A player doesn't even need to finish a hole if their partner already has a clearly better score — there's no penalty for picking up.
- Repeat for all 18 holes and add up the team's best-ball score per hole for the total.
- Can be scored as stroke play (lowest total wins) or match play (best team score wins each hole against the opposing team).
Worked example
On a par 4, Player A scores a 5 and Player B scores a 4. Since 4 is the lower score, the team's score for that hole is 4 — Player A's 5 doesn't count at all. If Player B had instead been clearly out of the hole after a bad tee shot, they could simply pick up rather than finish it out.
Common mistakes
- Confusing best ball with a scramble — in best ball, everyone plays their own ball the whole time; nobody ever plays from a teammate's spot.
- Assuming both players must finish every hole — only one needs to hole out for the team to have a valid score.
- Forgetting that in handicap play, each player's own handicap is applied individually before comparing scores, not a blended team handicap.
Track your best ball automatically
Keeping track of two separate scores per hole, then remembering which one counts, adds up fast over 18 holes. Golf with Mates records both players' scores and automatically takes the lower one as the team's result — no manual comparing needed.
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The best net score always counts for your team.
Four-ball scoring with individual handicaps applied.