The 15th Presidents Cup is upon us and once again the USA come in as heavy favorites to win the trophy after victories in every edition since 2005.
Jim Furyk has World No.1 and No.2 Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele at his disposal with his 12-man team featuring six Major winners versus Mike Weir's three.
I looked at the 2024 PGA Tour Strokes Gained rankings as well as driving distance, accuracy, greens in regulation and birdie averages for all 24 players in this year's teams and there were some interesting takeaways.
Here's seven things that stood out after looking into the stats...
The US is strong
I looked at six strokes gained categories for the PGA Tour season this year and four other statistics - driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation and birdie average.
In all 10 categories the US has the advantage. That surprised me. I was expecting to find that perhaps the Internationals were the better putters, or perhaps found more fairways, hit the ball further, made more birdies, hit more greens, just anything. But no, statistically, Jim Furyk's side have the edge in every category I looked at.
The Americans also have the higher world rankings and also more Major and PGA Tour wins.
They've won nine consecutive Presidents Cups and are rightly the favorites.
That doesn't mean they've won the 2024 Presidents Cup already, as luckily for the Internationals, the stats mean nothing once play in underway. And they'll have the home crowd on their side, too, as they look to inflict what would be a memorable upset.
Scheffler and Schauffele
World No.1 Scottie Scheffler is the best player in the field in terms of Strokes Gained: Total, tee to green, off the tee and approach the green.
He is the fifth-best around the green out of the 24 players and the 15th-best putter.
For the core SG rankings, he has an average of 15.2, which actually ranks him 2nd. Xander Schauffele has an average ranking of 8.7 thanks to solid stats throughout and a much-better putting performance this year. He's 10th in SG: Putting vs Scheffler's 70th.
If there's anything that lets Scheffler down, it's his performance on the greens.
The player who is best around and on the greens...
Statistically speaking, the best player around and on the greens this year (out of the 24 Presidents Cup players) is comfortably Mackenzie Hughes.
He ranks 3rd around the greens on the PGA Tour this season, making him the 2nd-best in this category of all 24 players, and he's 5th in putting, which makes him officially the best putter at the 2024 Presidents Cup.
Combine those two and he makes a lot of up-and-downs, and will surely be used frequently this week by Mike Weir in both foursomes and four ball.
Putting
The Internationals lag behind the US in every category when you average out their rankings in all Strokes Gained categories (it's US 57.4 vs Internationals 69.2 in putting) but it is actually the Internationals who have the three best putters.
The USA's best putter, statistically, is Xander Schauffele who ranks 10th on the PGA Tour this year.
The Internationals have three players who have gained more strokes on the greens than Schauffele this year. Mackenzie Hughes (5th), Taylor Pendrith (7th) and Jason Day (9th) are the Presidents Cup's three best performers with the flat stick.
Expect to see them well used this year.
Other International standouts?
Mackenzie Hughes is set to be a difficult opponent with his short game prowess and his team has the three best putters, so where else do the Internationals have standout players?
The Internationals also have the two longest hitters in Byeong Hun An (317.1 yards) and Min Woo Lee (315.5) but that is about it.
Corey Conners is their best iron player (3rd SG: Approach and 70.21% GIR), Si Woo Kim is their most accurate driver (67.27%) and Sungjae Im makes the most birdies (4.28) out of the International Team's players.
Where the USA might have the biggest advantage
When you average out all of the SG rankings for both sides, it is the 'Approach the green' category where the USA has the biggest advantage with a 28+ point advantage in the averages.
The US has three players in the top five of the SG: Approach category this year (Scheffler 1st, Tony Finau 2nd and Collin Morikawa 5th) vs the Internationals' one (Corey Conners 3rd).
All 12 US players rank inside the top 97 of the PGA Tour's Approach statistics, while the Internationals have three players who don't even sit inside the top 133.
The Americans have a combined GIR average of 62.29% vs the Internationals' 60.26%, too.
Max Homa
Max Homa was a wildcard pick for Jim Furyk and he is surprisingly the Presidents Cup's weakest player statistically this year.
He has a best SG ranking of 28th in the 'Around the green' category, a second-best ranking of 75th in Approach and then 100th, 107th, 117th and 156th in Tee to green, Putting, Total and Off the tee respectively.
Homa has a best finish of 3rd this year on the PGA Tour and just three top-10s from 21 starts. He'll be hoping to find something at Royal Montreal, which he could well do after an impressive Ryder Cup debut last year in Rome where he won 3.5 points from 5 matches.
