Fourball play (2pts):
Jordan Spieth & Patrick Reed to beat Ian Poulter & Stephen Gallacher +150 @ BetVictor [available generally]
A match containing three Ryder Cup rookies and a player out of form, so I would make this a much closer match than these odds suggest. Gallacher is a home player who lives than one hour from the course and has a great record in the Johnnie Walker Championship on this course, but as the home player he is under more pressure than any player this week and that pressure is legendary in this event for rookies. As for Poulter, he is struggling with his game with just one top-50 finish in his last six starts and only two top-10 finishes this year. His record in this event stands at 12-3-0, but his worst format in terms of his record is fourballs (4-2-0) and he has been rested from this format in each of the last two Ryder Cup so that is additional evidence that this is his least effective format. Spieth and Reed will be an unpredictable pairing as rookies, but both have been in much better form than Poulter recently and both rank higher in the World Rankings than both Europeans. I see this as a match with a slight edge to the American teams so, as with all the pre-event odds, I see the value on the American side at this stage, but this is still an event in which stakes are minimal.
