Staff USA defends its Solheim Cup title this week within the Netherlands, having gained in Virginia two years in the past. Again then, pairings had been the story of the week. Then-captain Stacy Lewis had constructed a full analytics operation to search out the sharpest partnerships. This 12 months, heading into Bernardus, the plain query is whether or not the U.S. workforce nonetheless makes use of a data-first method to construct its pairs.
Requested concerning the methodologies for this 12 months at Tuesday’s press convention, U.S. captain Angela Stanford laid out precisely the place the numbers finish, and the instincts take over.
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“I am in all probability 50/50. I believe we have used the numbers to get us so far and to get us into follow rounds. After which this week is extra about what you see along with your eyes as a result of there are extra feelings, there’s numerous different issues happening in play that—week-in and week-out they’re people enjoying golf, and this week it is a workforce sport.”
“So there are numerous different totally different components that play into that. However, once more, I simply assume we’re in a very great spot. Lots of it’s how we play the golf course. I’m very, very huge on the right track administration and enjoying golf programs, so we have sort of used each the information after which which holes—which gamers play higher perhaps on sure holes.”
“So I am actual huge on the right track administration. However it’s been sort of a combination of knowledge and course administration, after which this week is intestine and eyeballs.”
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This query, for context, will get requested each Solheim Cup for a easy motive: pairings resolve many of the factors. Of the 28 obtainable, 16 come from foursomes and four-ball, the two-player codecs performed on Friday and Saturday. Solely the Sunday singles are one-on-one. The captain’s pairings over the primary two days subsequently form your complete final result earlier than any particular person matches are performed. Naturally, it is precisely why the questions maintain arising.
Notably, these pairings will not be revealed to the general public upfront. Friday’s matches are revealed at Thursday’s opening ceremony, whereas Saturday’s are revealed the night earlier than. However the groundwork begins far earlier. Stanford mentioned that she and her employees have been monitoring gamers’ outcomes and who they’ve partnered with all 12 months, going again to March. With that, additionally they think about gamers’ decisions relating to who they wish to be paired with. These back-of-house calculations fall underneath the “knowledge” bracket of pairing procedures.
The 2026 pairings aren’t out but.
Naturally, one might ask, what’s the knowledge bit? Properly, the U.S. workforce makes use of the LPGA Efficiency Perception platform run by KPMG. It tracks shot-by-shot statistics for each participant, together with strokes gained, method pictures, brief recreation and placing, proximity to the opening, and the way gamers have scored on particular holes prior to now.
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Fed into simulations, the information factors to 2 gamers’ strengths complementing one another. For instance, pairing an extended, correct driver with a participant who excels at method pictures and placing would make workforce.
The opposite half of the equation, Stanford mentioned, will get the workforce into the follow spherical. The opposite half is “intestine and the eyeballs” that solely kick in as soon as everyone seems to be collectively on web site. Stanford and her assistants have been mixing practice-round groupings day by day at Bernardus, anticipating chemistry the numbers cannot seize. For instance, who calms a companion down, who feeds off crowds’ vitality, and who reads the greens properly, collectively underneath strain.
However there’s a rigidity between knowledge and intuition. Notably, that conflict is not new. The primary try to formalize the pairings got here in 2015, when Julie Inkster used persona checks. Lewis took it a lot additional in 2023 and 2024, bringing a devoted stat workforce to run full-time simulators forward of each session. Europe has stayed nearer to really feel. The then-captain Suzann Pettersen mentioned in 2024 she’d lock her opening pairings two months out on her instincts alone.
One of many clearest proofs that the method labored got here within the 2024 version. Lewis paired Rose Zhang and Lauren Coughlin for the opening Friday foursomes purely due to the numbers. And it labored. The duo gained 3&2 over Europe’s Albane Valenzuela and Céline Boutier. Zhang went on to play each session that week and by no means misplaced a match, ending 4-0-0, a Solheim Cup file for going undefeated with out a single match reaching the seventeenth gap.
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As for this 12 months, Stanford’s pairing will carry the very best of each worlds: knowledge and intestine emotions.
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