How to run a Ryder Cup format on a golf trip

The format works best with an even number of players, ideally 8, 12 or 16, so every session fills its matches. The fairest way to pick teams is a draft: name two captains, often the two lowest handicaps, and let them pick alternately. Check the result by adding up each team's Handicap Index. If the totals are far apart, swap a pair of similar players until they are close.

Give the teams names and colors before the trip. It sounds minor, but it makes the scoreboard easier to follow and the matches more fun to talk about.

A session is one round of matches, usually one per day of the trip. Every match is played as match play: the side with the lower score on a hole (net score in a net game) wins it, and the match goes to the side that wins more holes.

• Singles. One player against one player.
• Four-ball (best ball). Two against two. Every player plays their own ball and the better score on each side counts on each hole.
• Alternate shot (foursomes). Two against two with one ball per side. Partners take turns hitting the same ball, and they alternate tee shots, one teeing off on the odd holes and the other on the even holes.
• Scramble. Two against two. Both partners hit every shot, the side picks the better one, and both play from there. See the scramble guide for the rules.

Four-ball keeps everyone hitting their own ball and is the easiest session for mixed handicaps. Alternate shot is the hardest and the most memorable. Singles are usually saved for the last day, when every player carries their own point.

• A match won is 1 point for the winning team.
• A match that is all square after 18 holes is halved, and each team gets half a point. No extra holes are played.
• A match can end early once one side leads by more holes than are left, for example 4 up with 3 to play (4&3).
• The cup goes to the first team past half of the total points available. With 12 points on offer, 6.5 points wins. A 6 to 6 finish is a tie.

How Wedge scores it: a tie at the end of the trip splits the cup pot between the two teams. In the professional event, the team holding the cup keeps it on a tie, and some trips copy that rule with a returning champion. You can also make a day's matches worth more than 1 point each, such as double points for the final singles.

Play the cup net unless the group is close in ability. Start from each player's course handicap for the tees played (the course handicap calculator does this), apply the format's allowance, then give strokes off the lowest number in the match: that player or side plays off zero and everyone else gets the difference on the hardest holes by stroke index.

Here is how that works for one pairing on each day. Sam (course handicap 10) and Joe (18) play for one team against Rick (4) and Tom (12).

This schedule suits 12 players, six on each team, with one round a day. Every player plays in every session.

With 12 points available, a team needs 6.5 to win. Putting singles last means the cup is usually still open on the final day, because half the points are left. For 8 players, halve the matches on each day for 8 points in total and 4.5 to win. If the trip has a 36-hole day, treat each round as its own session.

How Wedge scores it: each session is a day (a leg) of the trip, and a player can have only one tee time in each, so a 36-hole day is set up as two legs. Cup matches are one against one or two against two, with players from both teams.

Most trips play for more than the cup. A common setup is a cumulative stroke-play leaderboard across every round, plus daily side games such as skins or Stableford. Every player's own card counts for all of them at once, so a four-ball match also feeds the leaderboard and the side games.

Alternate shot and scramble are the exception. Those rounds produce one card per team, not a score for each player, so nobody has an individual score that day. In Wedge, a shared-ball day is left blank on each player's stroke-play leaderboard and is skipped by the individual side games.

• An odd number of players. Cup matches need the same number of players on each side. Either one player sits out each pairs session in rotation, or the group adds a guest to even the teams.
• A match ends early. If rain or darkness stops a match, decide in advance how it counts. In Wedge, a match ended early is scored on the holes played: the side ahead takes the point and a level match is halved. A match the organizer cancels counts for nothing.
• A match decided with holes to play. The point is settled, but players should finish the round, because the remaining holes still count for the leaderboard and the side games.
• Handicaps that change during the trip. A posted round can move a Handicap Index overnight. Decide before the trip whether strokes are set once from the indexes at the start or updated each day; setting them once is simpler to explain.
• Gross and net mixed up. Settle on net or gross for the whole cup before the first match. Changing it after day one is the fastest way to start an argument.