You're a golfing virgin if you haven't played alternate shot foursomes"

"A far better test and a more enjoyable method of play than the four-ball match so popular in my country"

One of the most enchanting, and therefore well thumbed, books in my golf library is Golf is My Game. Written by Bobby Jones it is both instructional and autobiographical. It was published in 1961, more than ten years after illness had cruelly forced Jones to give up playing golf before he had even reached the age of fifty.

Every page exudes wisdom, charm and modesty. None more so than the section on alternate shot foursomes, or what the tiny minority of golfers like me who play this format regularly simply refer to as “foursomes”. Jones writes “the foursome form of play is not well known, nor well appreciated in my country. To my way of thinking, it is a far better test and a more enjoyable method of play than the four-ball match so popular in my country.”

Amen to that. Jones goes on to explain “the testing quality of the foursome arises from two factors: first, through the green the player will probably be playing shots of unaccustomed length because of having had someone else do the driving; and second, because, although you may not be concerned too much to put your own ball into a bunker, you dislike to impose the recovery obligation upon your partner.”

Again Jones hits the nail on the head. Foursomes imposes an extra pressure precisely because the consequences of your bad shot are felt even more immediately and directly by your partner than by yourself.

The ratio of golfers worldwide who play foursomes compared with fourballs is probably about the same as that of travellers who fly in private jets to those that have to rely on scheduled flights. Warren Buffett memorably described returning to scheduled flights after flying private as like going back to holding hands. Foursomes has the sexiness and other characteristics of a private jet; it’s faster, more exclusive and much more fun than the alternative.

Playing foursomes teaches you a great deal about yourself. It establishes a unique relationship with another human being, whom you may or may not like, or even want to speak to ever again after the event has been concluded. The psychological turmoil it often induces adds significantly to the agony and ecstasy of golf.

I suspect that playing a foursomes match with a partner you’ve only just met for the first time on the tee is the closest most golfers get to experiencing how the partners in an arranged marriage feel on their wedding night. It’s no exaggeration to say that sharing a golf ball with another person involves a degree of intimacy that only one other human activity creates.

I understand golfers who have only one deeply cherished chance to play a famous course wanting to hit their own ball. I’d be amazed if someone standing on the first tee at Augusta National for their one and only round there, asked their host “is it ok if we play alternate shot foursomes today?”

In almost every other situation, however, I would urge you all to give foursomes a try. In my experience anyone who really understands golf, and who can play tolerably well, immediately recognises the extra dimension and fun that foursomes adds to the game.

For a start, friendships develop quicker in foursomes because of the common interest you and your partner have. This constitutes a closer bond than any four ball contest can emulate. There’s also the frequent need to converse alone with whichever of your opponents is driving the same holes as yourself.

Speed of play is another important advantage of foursomes which in my view is now critical for the survival of the game itself. Playing a round of golf simply takes too long for many increasingly busy people, particularly women who in the 21st century are still expected to juggle the competing demands of professional and family life more carefully than most men.

Eighteen holes of foursomes and lunch can be completed in under four hours instead of more than five hours for a four ball. Played at the proper pace it’s possible to enjoy the perfect day’s golf - 36 holes of foursomes - with little more than five hours being spent on the course, not much longer than many four ball matches take to to finish 18 holes.

It’s time a few forward looking clubs started promoting the foursomes format actively. The first essential step is to reflect the fact that the wear and tear which foursomes imposes on the course is only half that of a four ball. Why not therefore discount the green fee charged for foursomes by 50 per cent? Secondly, since foursomes are so much quicker than four balls the first tee could be reserved until, say, 9 am for foursomes only.

If this caught on it would only be a small further step to design a new course with the needs of foursomes explicitly in mind. A clearly delineated path would lead from behind every green to a spot at least a hundred yards down the next fairway. Soon rounds of less than two and a half hours would become the norm.

The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay’s brilliant novel, somewhat neglected in today’s secular world, was described by the New York Times as “Fantasy, farce, high comedy and a succession of illuminating thoughts about love, sex, life and religion all tossed together with enchanting results”.

In the book Macaulay wrote “For all its agonies of despair and loss and guilt, it is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing, full of liking and love, at times a poem and a high adventure; and what, if anything, is to come after it, we shall not have it again.”

She was actually writing about life but as we all know golf is like life, and foursomes especially, so her words are equally applicable to the game. In fact true foursomes addicts believe that golf doesn’t resemble life. We know that it’s the other way round. A poem and a high adventure indeed.

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Yesterday’s off course events at Valhalla were among the most extraordinary ever to occur at a major championship. The next episode will be on Tuesday when Scottie Scheffler appears in court. Whatever the outcome of that is, his mastery of his own emotions under enormous pressure was remarkable.

Like fans around the world I will be glued to my tv today and tomorrow. The half way leader board promises huge excitement. Although Rory McIlroy sadly lost ground yesterday, decent rounds today could mean that Thomas Detry and Victor Hovland could fly the flag for Europe on Sunday.

Realistically my guess is the winner will be one of Schauffele, Morikawa, Scheffler or DeChambeau. They’ve all got major victories under their belts already and are in good form.