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 24 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.
Patrick Cantlay was USA’s best player on Thursday
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout lost over 4 strokes vs the field on day one
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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…
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