The 16-team, 32-player field features 24 of the top 50 in the world from the LPGA and PGA Tour.
For years golf fans have been asking for a high-profile mixed-team event to be on the schedule, and soon they’ll get their wish.
The inaugural Grant Thornton Invitational is set to tee off Dec. 8-10 at the Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, where the 32-player field of 16 teams will feature 24 of the top 50 in the world from both the LPGA and PGA Tour competing for a $4 million purse.
There are 11 major champions in the field, including all five major winners from the 2023 LPGA season. The format consists of a scramble, foursomes and modified fourball over three days of play.
The big-ticket golf events have come and gone but there is still plenty of pro golf to watch in 2023.
The 2023 calendar is winding down with just about five weeks left before 2024 arrives.
The big-ticket professional golf tour events have all come and gone, but there is still plenty of pro golf for fans to watch before the new year is here.
There is nothing going on this week as we all prepare for the long Thanksgiving weekend but on the horizon are a couple of what many call “silly season” events: a new team competition, a mixed-team event featuring PGA Tour and LPGA stars and the popular family tournament.
But it’s not all fun and games, as there are two Q schools and a promotion event where the stakes are high for those clinging to their professional golf aspirations.
Jason Day and Lydia Ko are the latest team committed to play in the Grant Thornton Invitational, which will debut in December as part of the Challenge Season.
The event, which replaces the QBE Shootout, will feature a 32-player field of 16 PGA Tour and 16 LPGA players competing for a $4 million purse. The three-day tournament, which will consist of three distinct playing formats in scramble, foursome and modified fourball, is set for Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples and will be televised by NBC and Golf Channel.
The 35-year-old Day, a native of Australia, is a 13-time winner on the PGA Tour. During the 2022-23 season, Day carded eight top-10 finishes in 24 events, including a one-stroke victory in May’s AT&T Byron Nelson. He and partner Billy Horschel also finished tied for 10th place in last year’s QBE Shootout.
Ko, a 26-year-old New Zealand native, has 19 career LPGA Tour victories. including a two-shot win last November at the CME Group Tour Championship at Tiburon. She also won the CME in 2014. Ko recorded 14 top-10 finishes in 2022.
Fowler was originally set to play with Jessica Korda, who is now expecting her first child and will not play.
A big life change for six-time LPGA Tour winner Jessica Korda is shaking up the team pairings for the Grant Thornton Invitational.
The 30-year-old Korda committed last February to play in the mixed-team event with partner Rickie Fowler. However, in August, she announced she was expecting her first child with her husband, Johnny DelPrete. With the baby due in February, the pro golfer is pulling out of the Grant Thornton, which is set for Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples.
Fowler will now team with Lexi Thompson, an 11-time winner on the LPGA Tour, as one of the 16 teams competing for the event’s $4 million purse.
The Grant Thornton, which replaces the QBE Shootout, will consist of three distinct playing formats when it debuts as part of the Challenge Season: scramble, foursome and modified four-ball.
Fowler and Thompson are the fourth team pairing confirmed for the Grant Thornton Invitational, joining Nelly Korda and Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala and Rose Zhang and Canadian golfers Corey Conners and Brooke Henderson.
Last year, Thompson joined Nelly Korda as the only women competing in the 2022 QBE Shootout. Korda tied for fifth with her partner Denny McCarthy while Thompson and Maverick McNealy tied for 10th. Theegala teamed with Tom Hoge to win last year’s QBE, coming from two down in the final round to edge Ryan Palmer and Charley Hoffman.
The 32-player field will be comprised of 16 PGA Tour and 16 LPGA players competing for a $4 million purse.
A co-sanctioned event between the PGA Tour and the LPGA at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida had already announced some spectacular pairings, with the likes of Rose Zhang and Sahith Theegala, Tony Finau and Nelly Korda, Rickie Fowler and Jessica Korda, and Corey Conners and Brooke Henderson all set to team up.
The Grant Thornton Invitational is set to debut Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, as part of the Challenge Season.
It will be the first mixed-team co-sanctioned event between the two tours since John Daly and Laura Davies won the final edition of the JCPenney Classic in 1999.
The 32-player field will be comprised of 16 PGA Tour and 16 LPGA players competing for a $4 million purse. The three-day event will be televised by NBC and Golf Channel.
The Grant Thornton replaced the QBE Shootout, which was founded by Greg Norman in 1989 and had been played in Naples since 2001. Last year, Theegala teamed with Tom Hoge to win the event, coming from two down in the final round to edge Ryan Palmer and Charley Hoffman.
In this round, each player hits a tee shot and then the team selects the ball to be used for the next stroke. From there, both players hit their next shots from that spot. This process continues until the ball is holed.
Saturday, Dec. 9: Foursome (alternate shot) format
This is the most traditional of the three days, adhering to a format that is consistently featured in both the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup. Each team’s players alternate hitting shots with the same ball until the ball is holed. One player will tee off on the odd-numbered holes, and the other tees off on the even-numbered holes.
Sunday, Dec. 10: Modified Four-Ball format
This final round will feature a format new to team play and a twist on traditional Four-Ball. In the modified format, both players tee off, and then they switch balls for their second shots and play that same ball until it is holed. The lower score of the partners is then counted as the team score for the hole.
Rose Zhang has taken the women’s game by storm since turning pro earlier this year, grabbing a win at the Mizuho Americas Open in her first professional start and finishing inside the top 10 of three of the four major championships she played in after leaving the amateur game behind.
Sahith Theegala has yet to enter the winner’s circle, but thanks to his infectious personality and appearance on Full Swing, the Pepperdine product has quickly become a fan favorite on the PGA Tour.
The two young stars will be teaming up this winter at the PGA Tour-LPGA co-sanctioned event at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, the Grant Thornton Invitational.
Other teams have already been announced, including Tony Finau/Nelly Korda, Rickie Fowler/Jessica Korda and Corey Conners/Brooke Henderson.
The three-day event will be held Friday, Dec. 8 through Sunday, Dec. 10
Here are just a few of the winners over the years, as well as one team that didn’t win but certainly created plenty of headlines.
It has been nearly 25 years since the PGA Tour and LPGA have come together for a mixed-team event. That’s will soon change in December with the addition of the Grant Thornton Invitational.
As the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship wraps up Sunday at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, there are plenty of memories for many of the game’s greats who competed there in the 1990s during the JCPenney Classic, which dates to 1978. Mixed-team events between the two tours date to 1960.
Here are just a few of the winners over the years, as well as one team that didn’t win but certainly created plenty of headlines:
The Grant Thornton Invitational is set to debut Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. – It wasn’t all that long ago that Cole Hammer played in mixed-team events like the Palmer Cup and the AJGA’s Wyndham Cup. At the University of Texas, the men’s and women’s teams often practiced alongside each other at their home course, so the idea of one day playing with a fellow Longhorn at the new PGA Tour and LPGA co-sanctioned Grant Thornton Invitational appeals strongly to the 23-year-old.
“I think this has been a long time coming,” said Hammer, who ended his career at Texas last spring with a national title and teed it up this week at the Valspar Championship.
Earlier in the week, Brad Faxon was telling Hammer about the time he partnered with Karrie Webb at Innisbrook for the JCPenney Classic. They were grouped with Tiger Woods and Kelli Kuehne that year.
The Grant Thornton event will be the first mixed-team co-sanctioned event between the two tours since John Daly and Laura Davies won the final edition of the JCPenney Classic in 1999. The roll call of winners from that event is a who’s who, particularly among the women.
The JCPenney dates back to 1978 and was hosted at Innisbrook, site of the Valspar, from 1990 to 1999. The history of mixed events between the tours actually dates back to 1960 with the Haig & Haig Scotch Foursome. Dave Ragan won it twice with the great Mickey Wright.
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The Grant Thornton is set to debut Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, as part of the Challenge Season. The 32-player field will be comprised of 16 PGA Tour and 16 LPGA players competing for a $4 million purse. The three-day event will be televised by NBC and Golf Channel for a total of nine hours of live coverage.
So far only two teams have been announced and all four players are Grant Thornton ambassadors. Nelly Korda will partner with Tony Finau while her sister Jessica pairs with Rickie Fowler. Cameron Champ and Mel Reid are also sponsored by the audit, tax and advisory firm.
Justin Thomas, who typically plays in the PNC Championship the following week with his father Mike, said he’s not yet sure of his summer schedule let alone what he’ll play in December, but felt the LPGA would get more of the exposure it deserves, and that players will develop some cool friendships along the way.
“I mean, I’m very close with Jess, and I’m not as close with Nelly as I am Jess, so my two partners that I had potentially in my mind are taken already,” he said, laughing.
Stewart Cink played in the old JCPenney for six years alongside three-time LPGA winner Emilee Klein, who carried four fairway metals in the bag.
“I’m always fascinated by what other people do in their sport,” said Cink. “In a way, it’s a different sport than ours, because they play a whole different set of courses and by different dynamics in the game.”
England’s Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open champion, never played in any mixed tournaments as an amateur except with his mom at their home club.
“She got a lot of shots,” he said, smiling.
Fitzpatrick said he won’t be competing in the Grant Thornton because he likes to shut it down that time of year, especially with the FedEx Cup now wrapping up in August.
“It’s in a poor part of the season,” he said. “I would rather it be a PGA Tour/LPGA tour event, get FedEx points for it, make it important.”
The event takes place on the same course two weeks after the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, leaving international players an especially difficult decision as their already short offseason becomes even shorter.
Nelly Korda is congratulated by playing partner Denny McCarthy after sinking a putt during the first round of the 2022 QBE Shootout at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida. (Photo: Andrew West/The News Press)
The Grant Thornton takes the place of the QBE Shootout, a team event that last year featured two women for the first time as Lexi Thompson and Nelly Korda participated. Korda tied for fifth with her partner, Denny McCarthy. Lexi and partner Maverick McNealy tied for 10th.
McNealy said he’d play again if given the chance. Qualifications for the event and format haven’t yet been announced.
“Golfers love team events,” said McNealy. “It’s something we don’t get very often, something we haven’t gotten much since college. So I think it would be fantastic and a lot of fun, a great change of pace.
“A great way to showcase all of the best players in the world at the same time.”
It will be the first mixed-team event since John Daly and Laura Davies won the JCPenney Classic in 1999.
It’s official. The PGA Tour and LPGA have announced a new mixed-team event for the 2023 season.
The PGA Touis set to debut Dec. 8-10 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, as part of the Challenge Season.
It will be the first mixed-team co-sanctioned event between the two tours since John Daly and Laura Davies won the final edition of the JCPenney Classic in 1999.
The 32-player field will be comprised of 16 PGA Tour and 16 LPGA players competing for a $4 million purse. The three-day event will be televised by NBC and Golf Channel.
“As we look to capitalize on the growing interest in the game of golf, the addition of a mixed event to the calendar has been a priority, and we greatly appreciate title sponsor Grant Thornton for their support in delivering an event that will make our sport more appealing and welcoming to all,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in a release. “We look forward to partnering with the LPGA as we deliver first-class entertainment and competition to our fans and the residents of Southwest Florida, who have embraced the PGA Tour for the past 22 years.”
Added LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan: “This is an important step forward for golf, women’s golf and the LPGA. We’re incredibly grateful for the leadership of our partners at the PGA Tour and Grant Thornton, and we look forward to producing a best-in-class event that inspires, elevates and advances opportunities for golfers around the globe.”
Grant Thornton is an official marketing partner of the PGA Tour and sponsors a roster of pros that includes Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, sisters Nelly and Jessica Korda, Mel Reid and Cameron Champ.
“PGA Tour athletes playing alongside the best athletes from the LPGA Tour is going to be incredible for our fans,” said Finau. “They’ve been wanting something like this for a long time. Our fans deserve it, and seeing Grant Thornton stepping up to help the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour put together this tournament, I think is very special.”
Last year, Nelly Korda joined Lexi Thompson as the only women competing in the QBE Shootout at Tiburon. Korda tied for fifth with her partner, Denny McCarthy. Lexi and partner Maverick McNealy tied for 10th.
“The Grant Thornton Invitational really is about being inclusive and showing people that golf can be accessible for everyone, no matter what way you play,” said No. 2-ranked Korda. “This is going to be the perfect opportunity for me to do something important in helping to grow the game and inspire the next generation.”
Tiburon also plays host to the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, which returns Nov. 16-19 with top-ranked Lydia Ko as defending champion.
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