Internationals Lead United States 4-1 After Day 1 Of 2019 Presidents Cup

Louis Oosthuizen (Bob Stapleton, Wikimedia Commons)

It was a great day for the International team after the first day of the 2019 Presidents Cup from the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday. The International squad was simply brilliant as they won four of five four-ball matches to take a 4-1 lead.

The most dominant International performance came from the duo of 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Abraham Ancer of Mexico. Oosthuizen and Ancer beat out the American superpower of Dustin Johnson and reigning U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland 4 & 3.

It was also a strong day for the duo of Byeong Hun An of South Korea and Adam Scott of Australia, who beat Tony Finau and Bryson DeChambeau 2&1. In other action, the 18th holes were required in the wins for Sungjae I’m of South Korea and Adam Hadwin of Canada over Americans Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, as well as for C.T. Pan of Taiwan and Hideki Matsuyama of Japan over Americans Patrick Reed and Webb Simpson.

The United States got their only point from captain Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas, who beat Australian Marc Leishman and Chile’s Joaquin Niemann 4 & 3. The fact that Woods is trying to do double duty this week is significant. Only one other captain has played at the Presidents Cup and that was Hale Irwin back in 1994. That year the United States beat the Internationals 20-12 in Gainesville, Virginia.

Only once ever in the history of the Presidents Cup has the International side won. That was back in 1998 at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The Internationals were captained by the late Peter Thomson of Australia and came away with a dominant 20 1/2 to 11 1/2 victory. The star on the international side was Japan’s Shigeki Maruyama, who won all five of his matches.

For the Internationals to succeed against a heavily favoured American squad in 2019, they will need their Japanese star to perform at a high level this week. Matsuyama did just that on Thursday, as he had marvelous chemistry with Pan in beating two major champions.