When you tune into the Ryder Cup’s opening session Friday morning at Bethpage Black, you’ll be watching the players competing in a format that’s not very commonplace.
The first session of the Friday and Saturday competition days are foursomes, which is alternate shot, with one player teeing off, the next hitting the second shot and so on.
It’s an intricate format that’s rarely played in professional golf and it makes for complicated pairings, because both players are using the same ball. And, in the world of professional golf, that’s a big deal with some players using higher spin-rate balls, some less, etc.
“Foursomes is obviously the tougher format to pair because there’s so many more factors,” U.S. captain Keegan Bradley said. “There’s the golf ball, [and] you really want to match up the personalities with foursomes because it is a way tougher format.’’
In each of the past five Ryder Cups, the team that won the most points in foursomes won the overall competition.
Foursomes have been the tone-setter in recent Ryder Cups. Two years ago in Rome, the Europeans wiped out the U.S. 4-0 in the opening session, and the Americans never recovered. Europe went 7-1 overall in the foursomes in Rome and won the Ryder Cup by five points.
Dating back to the 2012 Ryder Cup, a period of six competitions, the home team has a remarkable advantage in foursomes of 36½ points to 11½.
In this Ryder Cup, based on career records, the European players are much better and more experienced in foursomes than the U.S.
Among the 10 European players who’ve played Ryder Cup foursomes, they have a combined record of 30-15-2. Among the seven Americans who’ve played foursomes in the Ryder Cup, they have a combined record of 8-13 with only one player (Collin Morikawa at 2-1) having a winning record.
Conversely, Europe has some players who’ve been rock stars in foursomes with Justin Rose carrying a 7-2-1 career record, Rory McIlroy 7-5-1, Jon Rahm and Tommy Fleetwood both 4-0.
So, how the foursomes play out on Friday morning will provide a compelling “tell’’ on how the rest of the 45th Ryder Cup will go.
There’s much strategy involved in not only the pairings, but setting up the order in which the players hit.
In foursomes, teammates alternate hitting tee shots, so Player A would have all the odd-numbered holes and Player B all the even-numbered holes. The two players then alternate from there until the ball is holed, with the low score among the teams counting toward the match play total.
So, for example, the Americans would want to make it so that Bryson DeChambeau, one of the long bombers on the U.S. team, is hitting the tee shot on the longer holes, like the par-5s. Same for Europe and McIlroy.
“You need to trust your partner,” Gary Woodland, one of Bradley’s vice captains who’s played the format in Presidents Cups, said. “You’re going to put your partner in bad positions. You’re going to hit bad shots all the time like we do all the time. But it’s different when it’s just you. It’s letting that go and figuring it out together. There’s way more pressure than four-ball where you can play your own ball and do your own thing.”
For Europe, it seems unlikely that captain Luke Donald would change much (if anything) from what he did with the foursomes pairings in Rome. He has 11 players back from his 2023 team, including all of those who competed at foursomes.
On the Friday morning session in Rome, Rahm and Hatton paired, Ludvig Åberg and Viktor Hovland paired, Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka paired and McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood paired en route to that 4-0 lead.
Donald called this Ryder Cup on the road “a different animal’’ from Rome.
“Obviously having the chance to do it again doesn’t mean we’re going to do the same things we did in Rome,’’ Donald said. “It’s about implementing new techniques. I’ve really tried to look hard at exactly what this will require.”