Unlucky, Captain? Part 2

Following the US’s victory in the Ryder Cup, there has apparently been much speculation in the press regarding the decisions of Europe’s captain Nick Faldo in relation to the ordering of his team for the final days’ singles matches…

I say “apparently” because I’m not a great follower of golf (catching a few moments at a relative’s house over the weekend, I was certain I’d misheard when the Sky Sports announcer confidently asserted the match was coming from “Valhalla”. Surely that’s unlikely, I thought, what with it being fictional and everything…)

Anyway, the controversy seemed to revolve around whether Faldo had committed an egregious blunder or excellent blinder by leaving Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, and Porridge Harrington for the final three matches…

Now, the balancing act of course, concerns the following:

1] Do you put your strongest players out first (to boost the morale of the weaker players following)?; or

2] Is putting out your strongest players first a waste? (E.g. if you’re the US Captain, you’d want your best player to be up against (and beat) the best European player, not thrash the worst European player by a margin, a task which could legitimately be left (you'd hope) to one of the other fellows…)

A complicating factor is of course the state of the match when the time comes to announce the final day’s order for the singles matches…

To have a look at this, let’s assume that, as they won, the US has a slightly stronger team, so that they have the 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. best players, and Europe has the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc.

One possible set of parings would therefore be (giving the US player first):

1 v 2; 3 v 4; 5 v 6; 7 v 8; 9 v 10; 11 v 12;
13 v 14; 15 v 16; 17 v 18;19 v 20; 21 v 22; 23 v 24

Or another might be:

1 v 24; 3 v 22; 5 v 20; 7 v 18; 9 v 16; 11 v 14;
13 v 12; 15 v 10; 17 v 8; 19 v 6; 21 v 4; 23 v 2.

Or a third:

1 v 24; 3 v 2; 5 v 4; 7 v 6; 9 v 8; 11 v 10
13 v 12; 15 v 14; 17 v 16; 19 v 18; 21 v 20; 23 v 22.

What’s going on here? Not much, in fact. In each of the permutations above, given that the US are (as we’ve assumed) slightly better, they are likely to end up ahead in any one of these combinations (on the singles matches considered here, at least), but the range of likely outcomes is wider with the first draw, where all the matches are closer…

Of course, if Europe are well behind, the latter draw, where Europe has the highest ranked player in all except one of the matches would suit them better…

But, what can the Captains do? Well, since neither the US or Europe has a concrete historical policy of always putting out their best players first (or vice versa), the only way to prevent your opponent having any influence over the pairings at all is to simply draw the names out of the proverbial hat in a completely random fashion…

So, whoever takes over from Nick Faldo as European captain next time – just make it up, man! No, seriously, just make it up....