After the Europeans dominated the Americans in the opening foursomes session of the 45th Ryder Cup, it’s easy to wonder what went wrong for Team USA.
While it’s certainly not as big a deal as it used to be with the elimination of the “one ball” rule two decades ago, a possible explanation could be golf ball choice and pairings.
While teams in foursomes commonly switch balls every hole, using the player’s ball who will hit the approach, there are still teams who play one ball throughout a match. On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, co-host Johnny Wunder explained why that might be easier for the Europeans.
“For the Europe team, I don’t think it matters all that much. Now, the United States, it could get interesting because of the fact that some of these guys play [specific golf balls].”
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What Wunder was referring to is that many U.S. players either play a CPO (Custom Performance Option) golf ball or an older model ball with specific characteristics. In comparison, most of the European players play recent model golf balls.
For example, Xander Schauffele plays Callaway’s Chrome Tour Dot golf ball, which is a custom version of the Callaway Chrome Tour golf ball.
“Not everybody on this squad could theoretically want to play Xander’s ball because specifically how it flies from 5-iron to wedge,” Wunder said. “He plays the dot. So it’s kind of a flatter ball.”
Cameron Young also plays Titleist’s new Pro V1x Double Dot prototype, which might be most similar to the Chrome Tour Dot, but they are still different golf balls.
Including Young, seven players use a Titleist golf ball, but none of them play the same model. In fact, no player on Team USA plays the same golf ball model.
Patrick Cantlay – ’19 Pro V1x
Bryson DeChambeau – ’25 Pro V1x
Harris English – ’17 Pro V1
Russell Henley – ’21 Pro V1x
Scottie Scheffler – ’21 Pro V1
Justin Thomas – ’23 Pro V1x
Cameron Young – ’25 Pro V1x Double Dot
Sam Burns also uses a customized version of his golf ball, the Callaway Chrome Tour+, which is a spinny version of the retail ball.
While that might not seem like a huge issue, the nuance differences between the golf balls can have effects when it comes to approach shots, given the different launch and spin characteristics.
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Here are the other golf balls being used by Team USA.
Sam Burns – Chrome Tour X+
Ben Griffin – ’25 Maxfli Tour X
Xander Schuaffele – Callaway Chrome Tour X
Collin Morikawa – ’24 TaylorMade TP5
J.J. Spaun – ’25 Srixon Z-Star Diamond
By comparison, Team Europe has a lot more players playing the same or similar golf balls.
For example, Ludvig Aberg and Justin Rose both play the 2025 Titleist Pro V1x, Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry both play the 2025 Srixon Z-Star XV and Jon Rahm and Rasmus Hojgaard play the 2024 Callaway Chrome Tour X.
Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy play the latest versions of the TaylorMade TP5x and TP5, respectively, but McIlroy played the TP5x last season and that’s the ball they have been using for foursomes.
For more from Wunder and fellow Fully Equipped co-host Jake Morrow, listen to the full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.
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