Oh Pairs! What Shall We Do With Them?

For those of you that read my recent article, you will be privy to the upcoming season finale – The Dubai Golf Trophy, where the top 16 amateurs take on the top 16 professionals in the UAE.

Following the UAE PGA’s recent UAE PGA Championship (our last order of merit event) the final placings are now in, the team players are decided and we are gearing up to what will undoubtedly be a very close battle indeed.

Alan Mackenzie (Director of Golf at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club), is the captain of our team this year and he is busy formulating the pairings, along with Elliot Gray (vice-captain), which make up the first-day matches.

I remember going back a few years when I captained our side to a convincing 21-11 victory (as you can see for those amateurs reading this, the mind games have started already!), that it is quite an art to getting the right players to play well together.

The first day’s morning matches are foursomes and the afternoon matches are betterball. These two different formats of play couldn’t possibly be any different in terms of strategy.

Foursomes pairing need to be two players that not only have similar playing styles but also have similar characteristics.

Both players need to forgive and forget bad shots quickly and they need to be comfortable with each other and have similar abilities, players that don’t know each other too well won’t work well together.

Betterball pairings don’t particularly need to be great friendships, but do need to have a contrast of steadiness and flamboyancy in terms of playing styles – pars keep you in a betterball match but birdies win them.

It’s been very interesting seeing the results of some of the big mixed pro/amateur events around the UAE recently. Joel Neale, winner of the Black Tee Challenge last week fought off five of the top UAE Professional Team to clinch victory and Mathew Turner, who needs no introduction, beat a number of high-ranking pros in the Montgomerie Open in April.

Both of these talented juniors will be leading a very strong amateur side next week, but the success of the teams will depend heavily on whoever gets the pairings right.

JULES’ GEM - TIP OF THE WEEK

For those budding golfers out there and wannabe golf professionals, I would very much recommend taking a trip down to Emirates Golf Club (June 2) and Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club (June 3) to watch some of the matches and learn from both the amateurs and the professionals. Whatever the outcome – the match will be hard-fought but played in the greatest spirit of the game.