Team USA Ryder Cup Pod System Explained

Sep 25, 2018

During the Ryder Cup you may well hear about the USA's 'Pod System'... So what is it?

Team USA Ryder Cup Pod System Explained

The Ryder Cup is upon us and Jim Furyk‘s Team USA come in as favourites to win their second-straight Ryder Cup.

The Americans have been rejuvenated over the past few years thanks to their Task Force and Pod System.

The Pod System began in 2008, was used in 2016 and the USA will again be using their Pod System this week…..So how does it work?

Team USA Ryder Cup Pod System Explained

Back in 2008, USA Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger introduced the Pod System as a way to unite his team against a European side already united due to the fact that players have tended to travel and integrate together more over in Europe than the Americans do on the PGA Tour.

There was also an element of the Europeans uniting more for the European Tour as a whole due to the fact that is smaller in size than the American equivalent.

Azinger realised that the Europeans were naturally already in pods, due to their different nations and languages spoken.

He tried to re-create that with his USA team, so broke the 12 players up into three ‘pods’ or families of four players, where the team members would work in smaller groups to help team morale and create close-knit groups fighting for the side.

Azinger even got his pods, three men each at the time, to choose one wildcard pick each.

Azinger’s Pod System worked wonders in 2008. (Photo by Fred Vuich /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)

That group of four then plays together in all of the practice days and the pairings are made from those four players for a total of three different teams from each pod.

It also allowed the smaller groups to try out each other’s golf ball in preparation for the foursomes.

Also, three of the five vice captains are then assigned to one pod each.

This worked very well in 2008, where Azinger’s side won 16.5 – 11.5 at Valhalla for the USA’s first Ryder Cup victory since 1999.

The USA then went away from the Pod System and lost in 2010, 2012 and 2014, but Davis Love III then went back to it in 2016 and it paid off as the USA won 17-11.

One of the reasons for the Pod System returning in 2016 was the Task Force, which was created after the 2014 match at Gleneagles where Phil Mickelson publicly questioned Tom Watson’s methods at the post-match press conference.

“We had a great formula in ’08. I don’t know why we strayed,” Mickelson said after the USA’s 16.5 – 11.5 defeat.

“I don’t know why we don’t go back. What Zinger did was great.

“There were two things that allow us to play our best I think that Paul Azinger did, and one was he got everybody invested in the process.

“He got everybody invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their pod, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod.”

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