My point was that they were obviously simpatico, enjoyed playing together, and that surely contributed something to their good results. No more than that. 

They haven't played as many matches together as people seem to think they have, and when they did, they were some of the top five to ten players in the world at the time.

If you are that far out of it, how many stars could you possibly have?

There is a lot more match play played in the UK. One of the reasons for that is the different golf model over there. Here in the US, people either play public courses at a dollar cost per round or pay astronomical membership fees to belong to a private club. Even then a lot of the privates still have significant per round costs through caddies/carts. In the UK, most people belong to a club, the cost of which for a year is broadly similar to a month or two worth in the US. When your cost to play the round you're playing is basically $0, it's a lot easier to accept hitting half the shots in alt shot or picking up once you're out of a hole in matchplay. If you've paid $80-100 for the round you're playing, it's a big ask to hit only half the shots. Consequently matchplay is much more common over there and alt shot is also. There are some clubs (Royal St George's and Muirfield for a couple of famous examples), which are basically two ball courses. If four of you want to play there you have no choice but to play foursomes. Can you imagine that being accepted in the US?

The NBA is trying to prevent tanking to get better draft picks.  https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48763248/adam-silver-says-nba-present-3-2-1-lottery-proposal-curb-tanking The concept is that the bottom 3 teams would have worse odds than teams 4 through 10, who would have equal odds. In addition, they could be penalized by having their draft position moved and also monetary fines for tanking.  My concerns are the following. If you are out of it, it would be detrimental to have your stars injured and not develop younger players. Which would naturally cause more loses.