ALTERNATE SHOT
Take turns hitting the same ball. The game that will pressure-test any friendship, and the one every Ryder Cup morning is built on.
Alternate shot is the hardest partner format in golf and the best one to watch. Two players, one ball, every other shot. You reap the reward of your partner's good shots and you pay for their bad ones. They pay for yours too.
It is the format that makes a Ryder Cup morning what it is. Nothing else in golf produces the same silence walking to a ball your partner has put in a fairway bunker.
The two versions
One ball is the strict version, the one the professionals play as foursomes. The side plays a single ball. One partner tees off on the odd holes, the other on the evens, and they alternate shots until it is holed, whoever finished the last hole. Over eighteen that is nine tee shots each.
It is brutal, it is quick, and it halves the number of shots each player hits. For a group that has come a long way to play golf, that last part is a real cost.
Two balls is the version most trips actually play, and the one we would recommend. Both partners hit a tee shot on every hole. Then each player plays the second shot on their partner's ball, and from there they alternate on both balls until each is holed.
Everybody hits a full round of golf, you still live and die on your partner's misses, and you end up with two scores per side per hole instead of one, which means you can score it with any game you like.
How it scores
The two-ball version leaves each player holding a card, so score it as better ball, aggregate or Stableford, whichever suits the crew. The alternating is how you play, not how you count.
The one-ball version puts one score per side on the card, so it scores like a scramble: low side number wins the hole in a match, or the totals add up in stroke play.
Front nine, back nine and eighteen as three results, as always.
Handicaps
For the two-ball version, standard shots on the lowest indexes. Each player has their own card, so their own handicap applies.
For the one-ball version, the side is one player and needs one allowance. Average the two course handicaps and give the difference between the sides to the higher one. Some groups use half of the combined total instead, which comes to the same thing.
When to play it
Play it once, and make it the round that matters. Alternate shot is not the game for a relaxed Thursday. It is the one you schedule for the morning of the last day when the Cup is on the line, or the session that opens a Ryder weekend and sets the tone for everything after it.
Pair carefully. The conventional wisdom is to put your steadiest driver with your best iron player, but the real consideration is temperament: put two people together who will still be speaking on the twelfth.