What complicates matters is that Spieth went 3-1 playing with Thomas. But by splitting up Spieth and Reed, it created other potential problems. Reed played twice with Woods in four-ball and lost -- and didn't break 80 if he counted strokes on his own ball on Saturday.
And while Thomas had success with Spieth, he would have been considered a natural to play with
Rickie Fowler, with whom he had teamed to go 2-0-1 at last year's Presidents Cup.
The idea was the teams of Spieth-Reed, Thomas-Fowler and
Brooks Koepka-
Dustin Johnson formed the nucleus to build around. From there, you needed just one more team or to mix and match Woods, Mickelson,
Tony Finau,
Bryson DeChambeau,
Webb Simpson and
Bubba Watson.
And when the U.S. side was whitewashed in the Friday afternoon foursomes, the pairings came into even more focus.
"I felt like we came out of, in the past, having our most successful pairing in the Ryder Cup," Furyk said on Thursday after the first-session pairings were announced. "We had one very good pairing. I think we came out of it with two very good pairings. The idea was to double up and try to get two."
And that did not work out so well, simply because finding a place for Reed proved to be problematic. The natural spot was with Woods, an idol, and they had the unfortunate task of going up against the powerhouse tandem of
Tommy Fleetwood and
Francesco Molinari -- losing twice. It didn't help that Reed's form has fallen off recently.
More than that, it forced the Americans into some awkward foursome groupings on Friday. It meant Mickelson with DeChambeau in a format that was not conducive to Mickelson's inconsistent play of late; it meant putting Koepka, a two-time major winner, on the bench. The 0-for-4 result doomed the U.S.'s attempt at a first overseas victory in 25 years.