Through 18 holes at the 2025 PGA Championship, an international player has the lead. That should probably not be a surprise.

Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas birdied five of his last six holes to get to 7 under and take a two-shot lead into Friday’s second round.

Close behind on the leaderboard is Australia’s Cam Davis, two shots back, tied for second. Tied for fourth are England’s Aaron Rai, Germany’s Stephan Jaeger, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, England’s Luke Donald. The group tied for ninth includes England’s Tyrrell Hatton, Norway’s Rasmus Hojgaard, Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, England’s Matt Fitzpatrick, Colombia’s Nico Echavarria, Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune and Sweden’s Alex Noren.

Catching the drift here? Thirteen of the top 19 on the leaderboard on international players. They are all looking to be the one to break a PGA Championship trend. Since 2016, it’s only been Americans who’ve hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy.

But break that trend someone might. So far in 2025, international golfers have won 14 of the 22 PGA Tour events, including both last Sunday: Sepp Straka at the Truist Championship and Ryan Fox at the Oneflight Myrtle Beach Classic. The internationals have also won the first major of 2025, Rory McIroy at the Masters.

Which Americans are near the top on the PGA leaderboard?

Ryan Gerard (T-2), Alex Smalley (T-4), Michael Thorbjornsen (T-9), Keegan Bradley (T-9) and J.T. Poston (T-9) are all in the top 10. There are two Americans – Scottie Scheffler, Justin Lower – among the nine tied for 20th.

American golfers have dominated the PGA Championship

There have been 106 playings of this tournament. Golfers from the U.S. have it 86 times. Here’s the breakdown by country:

USA, 86

Australia, 5

South Africa, 4

Scotland, 2

Northern Ireland, 2

England, 2

Fiji, 2

Germany, 1

Ireland, 1

South Korea, 1

Which Americans have won on the PGA Tour in 2025?

The nine American winners (of eight tournaments) in 2025 are Harris English, Brian Campbell, Joe Highsmith, Russell Henley, Brian Harman, Justin Thomas, Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin (team win at the Zurich) and Scottie Scheffler.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Championship leaderboard has 13 international players in to top 19

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