I Don't Care Who Wins the Ryder Cup

Here's to hoping match play is the real winner

This weekend, the golfing world turns its attention to the Ryder Cup, where Team USA faces off against Team Europe in a three-day battle featuring various match play formats. Partners will duke it out in foursomes and four-ball matches, building toward Sunday’s climactic singles showdown. And while patriotic fervor will reach fever pitch on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ll be watching with a different hope entirely: that this biennial spectacle reminds everyone why match play deserves a permanent place on the professional golf calendar.

Golf’s power brokers seem determined to ignore an uncomfortable truth. We’ve systematically stripped away the sport’s most compelling format in favor of the grinding predictability of stroke play. And it’s killing the drama that makes golf worth watching.

Match play isn’t some modern innovation—it’s golf’s original DNA. The sport began as match play, players competing hole by hole in a format that mirrors the direct, head-to-head competition seen in most other individual sports, such as tennis and boxing. Stroke play, ironically, was the later innovation developed primarily for larger tournament fields where logistics demanded a different, more statistical approach.

Yet somewhere along the way, professional golf decided that the manufactured suspense of counting every single stroke over four days was superior to the raw, immediate drama of a mano-a-mano shootout. We traded the intensity of “win this hole or go home” for the marathon slog of “shoot the lowest cumulative score and maybe someone will care by Sunday afternoon.”

The casualties of this decision are everywhere you look. Remember the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play in Austin? Gone, cut from the schedule after years of providing legendary matches like Tiger Woods’ infamous 9&8 rout of Stephen Ames in 2006 and Scottie Scheffler’s narrow 1-up victory over Jon Rahm in 2023. The PGA Championship was match play until 1958. Now we’re left with zero regular match-play events on the PGA Tour, just the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup every other year.

Meanwhile, fans have been practically begging for decades to see match play incorporated into the season’s biggest moments. The FedEx Cup playoffs and Tour Championship represent the perfect opportunity to crown a champion through head-to-head competition. Yet year after year, we get some variation of the same stroke-play format that produces all the excitement of a Tuesday afternoon practice round. I mean, Rory McIlroy, one of the biggest names in the sport, said that he really only cares about the majors and the Ryder Cup at this point in his career. And, to top it off, he said that while being interviewed at the Tour Championship, which is supposed to be golf’s Super Bowl!

But there are encouraging signs of change. New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has sparked rumors about potentially modifying the season-ending events to incorporate a match-play element—possibly using stroke-play scores to determine head-to-head winners. If true, this would be the most sensible evolution in professional golf in decades. Finally, someone in power might understand that golf’s playoff system should actually feel like playoffs. Go figure, it’s being spearheaded by someone who worked at the NFL and has barely any experience in golf beyond caddying as a kid.

The resistance to match play typically comes from two sources: sponsors and television executives who worry about the format’s inherent unpredictability. They argue that infrastructure investments in grandstands and hospitality areas around the closing holes become worthless when matches end on the 14th hole. They fret about “fluky” outcomes where marquee players might get bounced early, leaving them with unknown finalists who won’t move ratings needles. These concerns, while understandable from a business perspective, miss the bigger picture entirely.

First, the infrastructure argument is easily solved. Build exciting viewing areas around holes 12 through 16, not just 17 and 18. And choose courses that allow for multiple focal points where drama can unfold.

More importantly, the “fluke factor” argument completely misunderstands what makes sports compelling in the first place. March Madness doesn’t become less popular when Duke gets upset by a 15-seed. It becomes the thing everyone’s talking about. These unlikely winners become Cinderella stories that capture imaginations and create new fans, not turn them away.

Beyond the upset potential, match play creates the possibility for marquee matchups throughout the entire tournament. When was the last time you frantically cleared your Thursday afternoon schedule to watch the first round of a stroke-play event? Now imagine Scottie Scheffler facing off against Rory McIlroy in a winner-take-all match. You might suddenly develop an illness that requires a work-from-home day.

This is match play’s secret weapon: it makes every hole matter in a way that stroke play simply cannot replicate. In a typical 72-hole tournament, Thursday’s opening round feels like a warmup, Friday is for making the cut, and Saturday is about positioning for Sunday. Only the final 18 holes carry genuine weight to average fans, which is precisely why television ratings are lower during the first three days of most tournaments.

Match play flips this dynamic entirely. Every hole within a match carries immediate consequences. Miss a three-foot putt and you don’t just add a stroke to your total—you lose the hole. Sink an impossible bunker shot and you don’t just make a miraculous birdie—you steal a point from your opponent. The scoreboard changes constantly, momentum swings violently, and viewers never know when the next shot might effectively end the contest.

The format also provides narrative simplicity for casual fans. Explaining that Player A needs to shoot 67 to have a chance at making up ground on Player B who’s currently three shots ahead but struggling with his driver, requires a PhD in golf mathematics. But explaining that Player A is two holes down to Player B with four holes left to play? A kindergartner understands those stakes.

I experienced the drama of match play firsthand just a couple of months ago. I found myself three down at the turn, convinced the day was over. But then I reminded myself that match play has a way of flipping scripts, and I proceeded to rattle off five straight holes on the back nine, turning what felt like certain defeat into an unlikely victory. That momentum swing felt immediate and real because I was staring my opponent in the eye, watching his confidence crumble with each hole I won. If I were in a stroke play tournament instead, I might birdie three straight holes and still have no idea if I’m even close to the leader, who could be playing nine holes behind me.

Professional golf finds itself at a crossroads, struggling with declining viewership and an aging fanbase while other sports capture the attention of younger demographics through immediate, digestible drama. There’s a reason younger golf fans are watching more YouTube golf than the PGA Tour. But that’s a topic worthy of its own post. The solution for professional golf lies right there in golf’s historical roots, being showcased brilliantly every two years when the Ryder Cup reminds us how captivating the sport can be when every shot carries immediate meaning.

So this weekend, as the world watches Team USA and Team Europe battle for continental bragging rights, I won’t be particularly invested in which side hoists the trophy. My rooting interest lies elsewhere. It lies in hoping that the executives watching from their corporate boxes remember what makes golf genuinely exciting. It lies in hoping that the television ratings for head-to-head competition dwarf those of the typical stroke-play snoozefest. And it lies in hoping that somewhere in the aftermath, someone with actual decision-making power realizes we’ve been doing this wrong for far too long.

After decades of relegation to offseason exhibitions, it’s time to bring golf’s most compelling format home where it belongs. The sport’s future might just depend on remembering its past.

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