MONTREAL (AP) — The Presidents Cup games were close. The score after the opening session was not.

The Americans clung to a 1-1 lead in all five games on Thursday, delivering shot after shot, putt after putt, until this already lopsided series took a familiar turn.

United States 5, International 0.

The Americans are coming off the first day of Fourballs play at the Royal Montreal lively Scottie Schefflerlate heroics from Xander Schauffele and plenty of help from the international team’s putting challenge.

It was the third time they shut out the Internationals on the first day and the first since 2000. The Americans earned an 11-point victory that year.

“We’re excited about our start – high fives, celebrating – and we’re going to keep the pressure on,” said US captain Jim Furyk.

National team captain Mike Weir had a plan for the first two days and saw nothing along the way that could be changed for Friday’s four-a-side games. Adam Scott had never been on a winning team since his debut in 2003 and he wasn’t about to give up hope.

“The best news is that there is a tomorrow for us. It’s not over,” Scott said. “We have to come out, fight really hard, find the right equipment, win a session and go in the right direction. The score line looks rough. But I don’t think there was that much of a difference today.”

Three games reached the 18th green. One ended at No. 17. The shortest game was Scheffler and Russell Henley having the final say with a 3-2 win over Tom Kim and Sungjae Im.

Scheffler and Henley never trailed in the most exciting match of an otherwise uneventful day, the Canadian crowd mostly silent after Mackenzie Hughes, who had to sit out the first session, drank a beer on the opening tee to get them going.

Scheffler and Kim are good friends who play big money in Dallas. On the par-3 seventh hole, 22-year-old Kim holed a putt from 30 feet, pirouetted around the green and yelled, “Let’s go!”

Scheffler parried the birdie from about the same length, and the best player in the world turned to Kim and screamed, “What was that?”

Things got intense on the next hole when Kim made another long birdie, celebrated wildly, and then he and I headed to the ninth tee without even watching Scheffler’s putt.

“It’s the same thing I would have done at home if he made a putt… and he celebrated like that. So it’s all just fun. We enjoy competing against each other,” said Scheffler. “That’s how it is out here. It’s fun to compete and represent our country, and at the end of the game you take off your hat and shake hands.

“Afterwards we’re friends, but we’re probably not friends during.”

It never looked like the Internationals would win the session. They didn’t expect a shutout either.

Taylor Pendrith, one of two Canadians in the lineup, made birdie on the 12th as he and Christiaan Bezuidenhout tied their match against Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark.

Schauffele and Tony Finau missed a 3-foot par putt on the 16th and their opening game against Jason Day and Byeong Hun An went completely correctly.

It could have gone either way. But things only got worse for the Internationals.

Bezuidenhout missed three 7-foot putts in a span of four holes, preventing his team from leveling the game. Scott missed two putts from 12 feet.

The Americans delivered the goods.

Schauffele made up for his short miss by hitting his tee shot to 7 feet to a back pin on the par-3 17th for birdie and then hitting his approach shot to 3 feet on the 18th to close the match finish.

“Tony got the party started on the front nine and he had my back all day,” Schauffele said. “I thought it was time to back him up.”

Bradley, next year’s Ryder Cup captain after 10 years since his last Cup competition, holed a 35-foot putt on the 13th and secured a 1-up with a 10-foot putt -Victory over Scott and Min Woo Lee. Emotions poured out of him.

“It was 10 years of pent-up energy that I didn’t play,” Bradley said. “I just had so much fun out there today.”

Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala rallied from a 1-down deficit through 11 holes as Morikawa made birdies on the 12th and 14th holes. Theegala secured it with an approach to just under 3 feet. He made the putt, the first time he had taken his golf ball out of the cup that day.

In the anchor game, Patrick Cantlay was as relentless as ever and Sam Burns made a 10-foot birdie on the 13th hole that gave them a 2-lead, and Corey Conners and Hideki Matsuyama were never able to take the lead.

The Americans also won the inaugural session in 1994. This was the eighth time in the last nine Presidents Cups that they had a lead after the first day.

Five four-way matches will take place on Friday. Furyk holds two teams together, including Scheffler and Henley, while Cantlay and Schauffele look to extend their four-man record.

“The last few away games have been close,” Cantlay said. “I think that’s a big statement. I think we have to build on that tomorrow.”

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