MONTREAL: The Presidents Cup matches were close. The score after the opening session was not.
The Americans clung to a 1-up lead in all five matches Thursday when they delivered shot after shot, putt after putt, until this already lopsided series took a familiar turn.
US 5, International 0.
The Americans swept the first day of fourballs matches at Royal Montreal behind a feisty Scottie Scheffler, late heroics from Xander Schauffele and plenty of help from the putting-challenged International team.
It was the third time they shut out the Internationals on the first day, and the first time since 2000. The Americans went on to an 11-point victory that year.
“We’re excited with our start — high fives, celebrate — and we’re going to keep the pressure on,” US captain Jim Furyk said.
International captain Mike Weir had a plan for the opening two days and he didn’t see anything on the course to make any changes for the foursomes matches on Friday. Adam Scott has never been on a winning team since his debut in 2003, and he wasn’t about to lose hope.
“The best news is there’s tomorrow for us. It’s not over,” Scott said. “We’re going to have to come out, fight really hard, find that gear, win a session and get going in the right direction. The score line looks rough. But I don’t think there was that much difference in it today.”
Three matches reached the 18th green. One ended on No. 17. The shortest match was Scheffler and Russell Henley getting the last word in a 3-and-2 win over Tom Kim and Sungjae Im.
Scheffler and Henley never trailed in what was the spiciest match of an otherwise flat day, the Canadian crowd mostly silent after Mackenzie Hughes, who sat out the first session, chugged a beer on the opening tee to get them going.
Scheffler and Kim are good friends who play plenty of money games in Dallas. On the par-3 seventh hole, the 22-year-old Kim holed a putt from just inside 30 feet and did a pirouette on the green, screaming, “Let’s Go!”
Scheffler matched the birdie from about the same length, and the world’s No. 1 player turned toward Kim and screamed, “What was that?”
It got testy on the next hole when Kim made another long birdie, celebrated wildly and then he and Im walked over to the ninth tee without even watching Scheffler putt.
“It’s the same thing I would have done at home if he had made a putt ... and he celebrated like that. So it’s all in good fun. We enjoy competing against each other,” Scheffler said. “That’s what it’s like out here. It’s fun to compete and fun to represent our country, and at the end of the match you take your hat off and shake hands.
“We’re friends after, we’re not friends during, I guess.”
The Internationals never looked like they would win the session. They weren’t expecting a shutout, either.
Taylor Pendrith, one of two Canadians in the lineup, made birdie on the 12th as he and Christiaan Bezuidenhout squared their match against Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark.
Schauffele and Tony Finau missed 3-foot par putts on the 16th and their opening match against Jason Day and Byeong Hun An was all square.
It could have gone either way. But it only got worse for the Internationals.
Bezuidenhout missed three 7-foot putts in a span of four holes that kept his side from squaring the match. Scott missed a pair of putts from the 12-foot range.
The Americans delivered the goods.
Schauffele atoned for his short miss by hitting his tee shot to 7 feet to a back pin on the par-3 17th for a birdie, and then hit his approach to 3 feet on the 18th to close out the match.
“Tony got the party started on the front nine and he had my back all day,” Schauffele said. “I figured it was my time to have his back.”
Bradley, the Ryder Cup captain for next year who has gone 10 years since his last cup competition, holed a 35-foot putt on the 13th and secured a 1-up win over Scott and Min Woo Lee with a 10-foot putt. Emotions were pouring from him.
“It was 10 years of pent-up energy of not playing these,” Bradley said. “I just had such a blast out there today.”
Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala rallied from a 1-down deficit through 11 holes when Morikawa birdied the 12th and 14th holes. Theegala secured it with an approach to just inside 3 feet. He made the putt, the first time all day he retrieved his golf ball from the cup.
In the anchor match, Patrick Cantlay was relentless as ever and Sam Burns made a 10-foot birdie on the 13th hole that put them 2 up, and Corey Conners and Hideki Matsuyama could never cut into the lead.
The Americans also swept the opening session in 1994. This was the eighth time in the last nine Presidents Cups they had a lead after the first day.
Friday has five foursomes matches. Furyk is keeping two teams together, including Scheffler and Henley, with Cantlay and Schauffele looking to build on their foursomes record.
“The last couple road games have been close,” Cantlay said. “I think it’s a huge statement. I think we need to build on that tomorrow.”
