Ryder Cup 2025: How everyday golfers can change the U.S. team going forward

Here’s a simple idea to help the Americans win the Ryder Cup that requires no task force.

We need to play foursomes. All of us. It’s a cultural change that must take root at every course, public and private, in our golfing nation.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of 25-handicap weekend warriors yearning to break 100. Give me your most talented juniors along with the wretched refuse of your teeming tee sheet. If alternate-shot becomes part of the fabric of what we play in the home of the free, we will take the tee back from the Europeans.

Many clubs in the British Isles are “Two-Ball Clubs.” In a given game at these places—such as Royal Wimbledon GC, Aldeburgh GC, Swinley Forest and so on—there are virtually never more than two balls in play. What we think of as “regular golf” is played in twosomes, and when there are four golfers, it’s alternate shot. From an early age and across a range of skill levels, the different rhythm and flow of alternate shot is embedded in their psyche. Like soccer and hockey and other team sports, you are truly sharing and passing the puck to your partner. As a bonus, this also makes golf a two-and-a-half-hour game. When played knowledgeably by pairs waiting ahead in landing zones to hit approaches, four guys leapfrogging around in less than two hours is not unheard of.

But in the United States, alternate shot is an occasion so special it’s ceremonial. Every two years in the Ryder, Presidents and Walker Cups, like cannon fodder, we send out our finest in a format with which they are unfamiliar and are never surprised to see them gunned down. While apart from Bethpage we have had some success and I recommend my colleague Shane Ryan’s statistical analysis of U.S. Foursomes, the script is worn: Even if we lose in four-ball (the default-setting format of recreational golf in the United States), too, we’re confident we’ll storm back in Sunday singles which embodies our rugged individualism.

The innovative Zurich Classic PGA Tour event in New Orleans went to team golf in 2017, but that’s just once for the very elite. The only country club alternate-shot I’ve witnessed in the United States was as a caddie in an annual husband & wife tournament dubbed The Divorce Open in hushed tones. Administrators openly acknowledged the strain and foreign inner experience of facing a plugged sand lie or sidehill four-footer left by one’s romantic partner but otherwise made no effort to change the gestalt of the event.

The two years I lived in Scotland we played alternate shot often, partly to quicken the pace in inclement weather as well as to avoid the mess and dissatisfaction of figuring out strokes. Provided four golfers are in a reasonable range, pairing the A with the D and the B with the C generally makes it equitable, same as in basketball or tennis. The volatile and capricious nature of foursomes overwhelms the handicap system.

I’m not aware of a state golf association that conducts a foursomes championship. Most run a four-ball championship (often casually referred to as best-ball or better-ball, where the lowest individual score on a hole of two partners counts). What if the U.S. Golf Association created a new championship for Foursomes to go along with the one it rightly established for Four-Ball in 2015? States and clubs would follow, and our next generation would grow up comfortable with the whirlwind. Foursomes is actually a great format for an avid golfer teaching a beginner. Because it’s faster, public courses could offer time slots with reduced rates.

Of course, we know the resistance. Mr. Chopper works hard all week and he’s not sacrificing the lone bright spot of his Saturday by hitting only half the shots. Until he tries it, Mr. Chopper can’t know that the good shots feel twice as good and the bad shots sting twice as bad. The amount of living and dying done in two-and-a-half-hours is more than plenty to meet the 19th hole. By all means, a visit to a new golf course is the time to play your own ball. But if you’re playing where you always play, try foursomes. Still apprehensive? Test it out as a bonus nine on top of your regular eighteen.

And none of this modified Pinehurst crap, where both partners hit drives and then choose the best one and alternate from thereon. It’s both fitting and a shame that this gutless format is named after our country’s golf mecca.

This might take a while, but it’ll be worth it. May the future Team USA Ryder Cuppers of 2033 or 2035 know foursomes as second nature.

MORE GOLF DIGEST @ THE RYDER CUP COVERAGE

• Ryder Cup 101: Everything you need to know about this year’s match
• Power Rankings: Breaking down all 24 players competing at Bethpage Black
• How to watch the Ryder Cup: TV listings, Viewer’s Guide, Tee Times & more
• 10 questions a time traveler would ask attending the 2025 Ryder Cup
• Every hole at Bethpage Black
• Bethpage Black par-5 masterpiece, explained
• 15 moments that made the Ryder Cup golf’s most compelling duel
• GamePlan: 3 sneaky match-play tactics pros use at the Ryder Cup
• What’s the deal with players being paid to play the Ryder Cup? A Q&A
• 7 mistakes from 2023 the Americans need to avoid repeating
• Will Bethpage be a breaking point for fan behavior?
• Which U.S. Ryder Cup uniforms have aged the best (and worst)
• The Ryder Cup ticket controversy, re-explained