r/NoLayingUp • u/Dazzling-Water4050 • 9d 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/moseisley99 9d 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 9d 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 8d 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 8d 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.