MONTREAL >> The United States swept the opening session of the Presidents Cup on Thursday for the third time behind a feisty Scottie Scheffler, late heroics from Xander Schauffele and plenty of help from a putting-challenged International team.

The Americans are going for a 10th straight win in this lopsided series, and the Internationals didn’t put up much of a fight in fourballs at Royal Montreal.

Scheffler and Russell Henley never trailed in their 3-and-2 victory over Sungjae Im and Tom Kim, the spiciest match of an otherwise flat day before a quiet Canadian crowd after Mackenzie Hughes, who sat out the first session, chugged a beer on the opening tee to get them going.

At one point on the back nine, the U.S. had 1-up leads in all five matches. Taylor Pendrith, one of two Canadians in the lineup, squared his match with a birdie on the 12th. 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.

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.

Taylor Pendrith and Christiaan Bezuidenhout certainly had their chances against Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark. Bezuidenhout missed putts from 7 feet on the 14th, 16th and 17th holes, any of which would have squared the match.

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.

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.