Ryder Cup 2025: Friday Afternoon Four-Ball Pairings
What an electric start to the 2025 Ryder Cup. Friday morning Foursomes are complete, with Europe leading 3-1 over the United States.
Now it's on to the the Friday afternoon Four-Ball matchups, which are as follows:
Match 1 (12:25 p.m. ET)
Scottie Scheffler & J.J. Spaun (USA) vs. Jon Rahm & Sepp Straka (EUR)
The World No. 1 will be expected to take the rookie under his wing as U.S. Open champion Spaun makes his Ryder Cup debut. Scheffler is undefeated in four-balls but has just one win under his belt with two ties. Both of those ties came in matches against Rahm, who teams up with Straka for the first time. The Spaniard lost his two four-ball matches at Le Golf National but is undefeated since with a victory alongside Sergio Garcia at Whistling Straits and those two ties. Straka makes his four-ball debut after recording a win and a loss alongside Shane Lowry in the foursomes two years ago.
Match 2 (12:41 p.m. ET)
Ben Griffin & Bryson DeChambeau (USA) vs. Tommy Fleetwood & Justin Rose (EUR)
Another rookie goes out alongside a player looking to bounce back from a morning defeat, with Griffin likely to provide the steady hand to DeChambeau’s aggressive approach. DeChambeau did not play the four-balls on his debut at Le Golf National but claimed 1½ points at Whistling Straits with the victory coming against Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland. Fleetwood forms a new partnership with Rose and he will hope to replicate the four-balls success he achieved in claiming two wins alongside Francesco Molinari in 2018, but he is winless in three better-ball matches since. Veteran Rose formed a formidable four-ball team with Henrik Stenson across 2014 and 2016, with his other victories coming alongside Ian Poulter and Robert MacIntyre in a 5-4-1 record.
Match 3 (12:57 p.m. ET)
Cameron Young & Justin Thomas (USA) vs. Ludvig Åberg & Rasmus Højgaard (EUR)
A third rookie in Cameron Young teams up with Justin Thomas, who has played ten Ryder Cup matches in a pair but only one of them without Jordan Spieth. That came in a tie alongside Patrick Cantlay in 2021 and he has not tasted victory in four-balls since securing two wins with Spieth in Paris, although he has lost just once. Højgaard is Europe’s only rookie and he goes out with Åberg, who has just one four-ball appearance himself, losing 4&3 to Sam Burns and Collin Morikawa alongside Viktor Hovland on Saturday at Marco Simone.
Match 4 (1:13 p.m. ET)
Sam Burns & Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy & Shane Lowry (EUR)
No rookies in the bottom match where Cantlay will look to carry his momentum from the late win in the morning. He claimed a victory against McIlroy at Marco Simone and is undefeated in his two four-ball matches, while Burns won his only match in the format in Italy alongside Collin Morikawa. McIlroy and Lowry have played together once before in the four-balls, losing to Tony Finau and Harris English at Whistling Straits. Four-balls has been McIlroy’s weakest suit in the Ryder Cup with a 5-6-2 record, while Lowry bounced back from his defeat alongside the Northern Irishman for a dramatic revenge win over Finau and English alongside Tyrrell Hatton.
In the Four-Ball matches, each member of a two-man team plays his own ball, so four balls are in play on every hole. Each team counts the lowest of its two scores on each hole, and the team whose player has the lowest score wins the hole. If the low scores are tied, the hole is halved.
To understand how the captains select their pairings for these formats, we put together a selection primer to help.