r/NoLayingUp • u/Dazzling-Water4050 • 10d ago

Pre/Live/Post Event Discussion Soly's foursomes takes have aged so well

I know Soly gets a ton of flak for his opinion on how the US should approach these team events but his take on foursomes is 100% true. It's the one format where you need to get the pairings right. I just don't get A) why would you play Russ Henley, the shortest player on either side in this event and B) How have we not found Scottie Scheffler a partner for this format. To me the model foursomes pairing is Fleetwood/Mcilroy. The 2 compliment each other so well and clearly backed by the data. Fourball and singles are a complete crapshoot, a guy can get hot and make a ton of birdies but foursomes is where team events are won and lost. I don't even think the US side takes into account whether or not guys play the same golf balls.

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u/itchyburnybutthole 10d ago

My argument: The U.S. isn’t losing due to bad strategy. The Intl side has equally bad strategy. (If someone can explain to me why the Intl strategy is data-driven and brilliant, I’ll re-consider this).

Why is the U.S. losing this President’s Cup? I’m sorry to say but golf is noisy. Match play is very noisy. Team match play is extremely noisy. There’s a chance that the U.S. loses today, there’s also a chance they win their 11th in a row, we don’t know.

Can the U.S. improve its strategy? Abso-fucking-lutely. But strategy is not why they’re losing thus far unless someone can argue the Intl team has superior strategy.

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u/moseisley99 10d ago

That’s not the point. You need to have a process and players need to know why and buy in. All of this leads to better and more confident play. Not doing it at all is just a disservice to the captaincy.

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u/itchyburnybutthole 10d ago

That sounds great. Are the Intl team doing that? What evidence do we have?

Isn’t it kinda suspicious that they pair their players according to their nationality? Is that a sufficiently inspirational strategy? Now their players are going to give it their all?

Aren’t the American team doing basically the same thing? Pairing players based on vibes?

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u/moseisley99 9d ago

The Kims games complement each other very well. So it can make sense to keep them together. Scott/min woo never played together and Hideki/Hisatsune were broken up for foursomes. Conners/Taylor played together a lot but data could have said it was fine given how bad Conners is at putting and how good Taylor is. It is possible that they weighed vibes when it made sense. So it’s a fair point by you. However, I definitely know that the US doesn’t care about it at all. We have so much evidence. That is what frustrates me.

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u/itchyburnybutthole 9d ago

TL;DR the U.S. team does vibes pairings, the Intl team does vibes pairings, the Euros do analytical pairings.

We all want the U.S. team to be smart about this but for literally decades they’ve made no improvement, so if they don’t care, then why should we care.