TALKING POINT: HOME INTERNATONALS FORMAT

E-mail from Denise McCarthy

Irish Ladies Golf Union 

 

Reference your website report on the Girls' Home Internationals which suggested that Scotland would be in favour of dropping the foursomes from the format.

 

I don’t understand why Scotland want to drop the foursomes ... I think foursomes is a smashing form of play and a discipline worth preserving.

If anything, and in my personal opinion, I would drop the “rested players”format and have four foursomes and eight singles so that everyone plays each round.

Food for thought ...

Denise McCarthy

High Performance Unit

Irish Ladies Golf Union

Footnote from Colin Farquharson: I must stress that my tongue-in-cheek reference to Scotland being in favour of dropping the foursomes (having lost them 2-1 to both Wales and Ireland and 3-0 to England) should not be taken seriously. 

No SLGA officials have ever given me their view on the subject, on or off the record.

At the same time, I personally think that two-ball foursomes is the "modern version" of the old Scotch Foursomes and the Ryder Cup format recognises that.

Times change. When was the last time you rolled up to your golf club and suggested to your friends: "Let's have a game of foursomes?"

Perhaps there could be a compromise, incorporating Denise McCarthy's "everybody plays" suggestion - let's have two traditional alternate-shot foursomes and two  better-ball foursomes as the morning programme and eight singles in the afternoon.

If a player is genuinely ill or sick and unable to play in either morning or afternoon sessions, it would be up to the authorities to decide (in advance) whether that match is conceded by default or declared a halved match.  

Kirkwoodgolf would be interested to hear your views.

E-mail them to Colin@scottishgolfview.com