Strategy for setting pairings for four ball and foursomes teams in club Ryder Cup setting

[burkelaw]

I am captain of a  12-man Ryder Cup team.  I have to pair my players for 2 of the matches, bestball (four ball) and alternate shot (foursomes).  What;s the best strategy?  High with low handicappers? As close as possible handicappers?

Thanks

Burkelaw

[vangator]

That's the $64,000 question. I play in this style of tourney every year. We try to keep team handicaps somewhat equal. Sometimes that's hard to do. Our captain this year tried to put out strong teams and weak teams. He banked on the strong teams winning and hoping the weak teams would steal a point or two, Unfortunately for me, for alternate shot, we didn't follow that pattern. I got paired with a weak player (20+ HCP) with me being a 5. The weak player will control the match. He hit one fairway. More than half his shots were OB or in a hazard or in the trees. On the par 4's, I never hit an iron less than a six. I missed one fairway all day and he did not get one GIR. It was a long day. For the best ball tourney the next day, I got paired with another high handicapper, but even giving 50% handicap, I controlled the match. The pairings did not have as much of an impact as the alternate shot did. So, if it's a "fun" tourney, try to match handicaps as much as possible and the team that plays better wins. Also, 100% handicaps is nuts. I would not play in a match with 100% handicaps.

[saevel25]

I am captain of a  12-man Ryder Cup team.  I have to pair my players for 2 of the matches, bestball (four ball) and alternate shot (foursomes).  What;s the best strategy?  High with low handicappers? As close as possible handicappers?

Thanks

Burkelaw

Depends on how you are going to do handicaps. In most cases if you have a large gap in handicap then a group of high handicap players will beat low handicap players in four ball. Golf is a game of marginal returns. Birdies are tough to get. Bogies are easier, and getting strokes really is a big advantage.

[Big C]

Just my opinion, but your goal as captain should be to match up personalities rather than try to match up handicaps. Your 15 handicapper could be your most valuable weapon in the right partnership. Or.... he could be completely dead weight in the wrong grouping. Sometimes guys feed off of one another and sometimes the personalities don't gel. There is no exact science to it, but hopefully you have a good enough understanding of your teammates that you can make some educated decisions and then tweak it from there when you see what does or doesn't work.

[DaveP043]

I agree with @Big C in that a big part of your job is to match personalities.

In addition, I believe that for fourball matches, a good team is a steady player with a more erratic player.  The more erratic player will probably make a few net birdies or better, while the steady player can generally keep the team in a hole if the erratic player has a bad stretch.

For foursomes, I'd pair players with similar attitudes towards risk.  In foursomes the choice of shot tends to be a more team approach, and to have the players disagree on the course of action can only cause doubt in the mind of the guy hitting.  This goes whether its the conservative player who's talked into taking a bigger risk than he'd normally take, or the aggressive player talked into laying up.  It still holds if its the other way round, the conservative player laying up, even though he knows his partner would rather go for it, or vice versa.  In my experience, doubt is NEVER a good thing in golf.

A last factor that I'd consider, if you have guys who don't play a lot of competitive golf, be sure to pair them with a more experienced player.

[vangator]

My company has a shamble best ball tourney coming up. Four man teams. Everybody tees off and the best drive is picked. Everybody plays their own ball the rest of the way. Best 2 or 3 scores (can't remember) with 50% handicap is chosen. No shamble on the par 3's. Should be a lot of fun. Not a particularly long course (6400), so I better start practicing since I'm the A player. BTW, I love being the B player (or less) in a scramble. I usually play really well, particularly driving.

[Club Rat]

With inter-club Ryder Cup matches, I often lean towards creating team pairings which I believe guys will have the most competitive rounds.

Knowing past history of players in stroke or match play events, where players get a chance at a re-match is always fun.

Create teams at evenly skill levels will ensure an enjoyable event by everyone.

Club Rat

[DaveP043]

Create teams at evenly skill levels will ensure an enjoyable event by everyone.

This is another consideration that I ignored.  Dean Knuth believes that a difference of 6 or 8 handicap strokes between two players yields the strongest team, but I know that many players don't like giving up a lot of strokes in any match.  In our inter-club league, we have a rule that limits the handicap difference between fourball team members to 4 strokes, and we always pair our lowest-handicap team against the other low-handicap team.  Most matches won't have any more than 2 or 3 strokes given, and an even match like that is probably the most enjoyable to me.  This is where the desire to field the most competitive set of teams can run counter to the goal of making the matches as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

[burkelaw]

Thanks to all, and all valid points. Tough when the field is small, set and varied. Since it's an intra-club event and we're all friends out for a good time, I think I'll go with like handicappers as partners as they are less likely to lbe upset/surprised by their partner's play.

[natureboy]

On 9/16/2015 at 3:28 PM, saevel25 said:

getting strokes really is a big advantage.

I think that depends somewhat on the relative difference / HCP gap: http://www.popeofslope.com/guidelines/handicap103.html

On 9/18/2015 at 8:22 AM, DaveP043 said:

This is another consideration that I ignored.  Dean Knuth believes that a difference of 6 or 8 handicap strokes between two players yields the strongest team, but I know that many players don't like giving up a lot of strokes in any match.  In our inter-club league, we have a rule that limits the handicap difference between fourball team members to 4 strokes, and we always pair our lowest-handicap team against the other low-handicap team.  Most matches won't have any more than 2 or 3 strokes given, and an even match like that is probably the most enjoyable to me.  This is where the desire to field the most competitive set of teams can run counter to the goal of making the matches as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

Good mention. Here's a link to some of his scramble tournament thoughts: http://www.popeofslope.com/scramble/index.html

Edited January 14, 2016 by natureboy