best balln.
/ˌbɛs(t) ˈbɔːl/, U.S. /ˈbɛs(t) ˈbɔl/ Golf.
1. That ball out of a group of two or more which is holed in the smallest number of strokes; usually with reference to balls played on the same hole by members of the same team. Also: the score achieved from a series of holes on each of which the lowest-scoring ball (of each team) is counted.
ΚΠ
1871 Bell's Life in London 6 May 9/4 A contest between D. Stratt v Mr M. Innes, and Mr R. Clark, each playing his own ball, Stratt playing against the best ball of either.
1899 Manch. Guardian 31 Jan. 11/4 A four-balled match was arranged, the ‘best ball’ of the amateurs against that of the professionals.
1917 Princeton Alumni Weekly 6 June 826/3 The medal play handicap mixed tournament was won by Mr. and Mrs. D. G. Herring, with a best ball of 69.
1939 Washington Post 7 Aug. 15/2 Jim Gipe..was a main factor in a best ball of 60..posted by a foursome that included [etc.].
2011 R. Mohr & L. M. Krupa Golf in Denver i. 13 (caption) Harry Vardon..played his ball against the other three players' best ball and won the 36-hole match three and two.
2. A ‘best ball’ match or competition (see Compounds); golf played on this basis.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > sport > types of sport or game > ball game > golf > forms of golf > [noun]
miniature golf1890
clock golf1899
best ball1920
putt-putt1922
midget golf1930
crazy golf1936
minigolf1950
mini-putt1971
pitch-and-putt1972
1920 Washington Post 29 Aug. 18/4 In an interesting 18-hole best-ball over the course of the Winnipeg Golf Club..Ted Ray and I defeated [etc.].
1979 D. Riepe Owl flies by Day 148 Good old Mac... Often put his second right over the green when we were playing ‘best ball’.
1994 Chicago Tribune 3 July iii. 10/1 At this rate, it might not matter if Greg Norman and John Daly were playing best-ball in the Motorola Western Open. They still might not beat Nick Price.
2010 S. Eubanks To win & die in Dixie x. 120 In June they would play another public match, this one a best-ball between the pros..against [sic] the Whiz Kids.
Compounds
General attributive, with reference to a form of match play in which the best ball (sense 1) out of all those played by members of a team on each hole is taken as that team's score for the hole.
ΚΠ
1890 H. S. C. Everard in H. G. Hutchinson et al. Golf (Badminton Libr. of Sports & Pastimes) xiv. 391 To Mr. Robert Clark is due the merit of evolving the interesting ‘best ball’ matches.
1923 Bull. Green Sect. U.S. Golf Assoc. 22 Oct. 269 Four men are playing a best-ball four-ball match.
1956 B. D. Zaharias & H. Paxton This Life I've Led x. 131 Our ‘team’..finished first with a best-ball score of 120.
1999 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 6 Oct. 46/6 The 27-hole event featured a best-ball format for the first nine holes.
2007 A. Brumer Poetics of Golf 84 The event teamed Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus against Lee Trevino and Sergio Garcia in a best ball contest.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2014; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
n.1871