Gullane with the Edinburgh skyline background
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
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 are extended stays in Ayrshire, and to a lesser extent Aberdeenshire. Otherwise we have some truly great non-golf compliments. Golf got lucky really!
Gleneagles
The standard accommodation solution is for a twin room. The golf industry is well set-up for this. Indeed, the twin room in St Andrews is the more popular booking in some cases. 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
Royal Aberdeen 17th
Edinburgh Castle
Four golfers won’t experience any problems trying to introduce non-golf visitor attractions into a programme. Faraway Fairways can’t think of anywhere in Scotland that is affected. The only possible angle might be some specialist distillery tours who sometimes limit numbers to no more than ten, but this is really a question of booking in good time
A majority of golfers choose to bring their own clubs. If you’d prefer to hire then it normally works out more expensive once everything has been done. There would be a choice between using a golf hire club agency or the pro-shop
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 (although we’d have to accept we have occasionally snook a two ball through on the next reserve draw)
Fourball parties are the easiest to accommodate on any advance ballot or guaranteed package too