The Startling Numbers That Show Just How Far Off Internationals Were In Presidents Cup Opening Session

Team USA swept the first session 5-0 at the Presidents Cup to leave the Internationals with a huge mountain to climb over the remaining four sessions - and the stats show just how far off Mike Weir's home team were on day one.

Strokes Gained numbers from Data Golf gave a fascinating, and startling, look into how well, or not, the 20 golfers played in Thursday's opening four ball session and it isn't great reading for Weir and his team.

Jim Furyk's Americans were comfortably better in every single category and were a total of 26 strokes better than the Internationals thanks to 8 strokes gained in putting, 9.4 around the green, 5.3 in approaches and 3.1 off the tee.

The top six players were all Americans and the bottom five were all International players.

Patrick Cantlay was statistically the best player on Thursday with 3.93 strokes gained vs the field, with the eight-time PGA Tour winner leading the SG: Approach (+2.9) and SG: Tee to green (2.73) categories.

Cantlay made five birdies in 17 holes as he and Sam Burns took down Hideki Matsuyama and Corey Conners 2&1.

It was US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley who led the field in putting (+2.43 SG), with Sam Burns producing the best performance around the greens (+1.97 SG). 

The best player off the tee statistically was actually an International, Min Woo Lee. The Australian gained 1.35 strokes with his tee shots but lost strokes in every other department for a -2.63 total.

He and Adam Scott went down 1dn to Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala.

The Internationals' best player on day one was Taylor Pendrith, who gained 1.3 strokes vs the field. He was one of four Internationals to gain strokes in the four balls, with the US having seven players in the positive - Cantlay, Clark, Henley, Schauffele, Bradley, Scheffler and Morikawa.

The worst player statistically on day one was Christiaan Bezuidenhout, with the South African losing 4.05 strokes vs the field despite gaining 1.1 strokes in his approaches.

The International side have a lot of work cut out to try and claw back the deficit, with five foursomes matches on Friday, eight doubles games on Saturday (four four ball, four foursomes) and 12 singles on Sunday to come.

Mike Weir can take some assurance that there are still 25 points to play for, although his team will need to make up ground over the next two days to have a chance going into the singles.

Presidents Cup day 1 results

Match 1:  Xander Schauffele/Tony Finau <USA WIN 1UP> Jason Day/Byeong Hun An

Match 2: Collin Morikawa/Sahith Theegala <USA WIN 1UP> Adam Scott/Min Woo Lee

Match 3: Scottie Scheffler/Russell Henley <USA WIN 3&2> Sungjae Im/Tom Kim

Match 4:  Wyndham Clark/Keegan Bradley <USA WIN 1UP> Taylor Pendrith/Christiaan Bezuidenhout

Match 5: Patrick Cantlay/Sam Burns <USA WIN 2&1> Hideki Matsuyama/Corey Conners