The Grant Thornton Invitational is again this week, reside on Sky Sports activities, with the celebs of the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour becoming a member of forces for a singular mixed-team occasion. Here is a take a look at the format, discipline, schedule and all it is advisable to know…
What’s it?
The 54-hole competitors is a mixed-team occasion that sees 16 LPGA Tour and 16 PGA Tour professionals compete collectively in a singular co-sanctioned match.
The three-day match gives three completely different codecs of group play and permits the 32-player discipline to compete for equal prize cash and visibility.
Nelly Korda options for the second successive 12 months, partnering Tony Finau within the three-day match
It is the second successive 12 months that the match has featured on the schedule, having been launched in 2023 as the primary co-sanctioned occasion between the LPGA Tour and PGA Tour for the reason that JCPenney Basic in 1999.
Which codecs are used?
Friday’s motion is performed beneath as a scramble, the place every participant hits a tee shot after which the group selects which ball for use for the subsequent shot. Each gamers hit their subsequent photographs from that spot and the method continues till the ball is holed.
Tom Kim performs alongside Jeeno Thitikul
The second spherical makes use of foursomes, with every group’s gamers alternating hitting photographs with the identical ball till the ball is holed. One participant will tee off on the odd-numbered holes and the opposite tees off on the even-numbered holes.
Sunday’s ultimate spherical is then performed beneath a modified fourball, the place each gamers tee off and change balls for his or her second photographs. They then play that very same ball till it’s holed, with the bottom rating between the pair then counting because the group rating for that gap.
The place is it performed?
The match takes place at Tiburón Golf Membership, which hosts the LPGA Tour’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship and the QBE Shootout – a group occasion that ran on the PGA Tour till being eliminated on the finish of 2022.
Who’s enjoying in it?
5 of the world’s high 10 within the girls’s recreation function, with world No 1 Nelly Korda – the LPGA Tour Participant of the 12 months after seven worldwide wins in 2024 – partnering Tony Finau and two-time main champion Lilia Vu alongside Luke Checklist.
AIG Girls’s Open champion Lydia Ko is again to defend the title with former males’s world No 1 Jason Day, with Solheim Cup star Celine Boutier additionally in motion and partnering compatriot Matthieu Pavon.
Lexi Thompson is paired with Rickie Fowler and Lauren Coughlin performs alongside Cameron Younger, whereas Sahith Theegala is the highest-ranked participant from the lads’s recreation and can accomplice Allisen Corpuz.
Lexi Thompson has stated she’s going to cease enjoying full-time on the LPGA Tour on the finish of this 12 months
What’s up for grabs?
Though the occasion is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour, it doesn’t rely as an official match and the cash received is unofficial within the season-long standings.
Official World Golf Rating (OWGR) and Rolex Girls’s World Golf Rankings factors aren’t awarded, though there’s a $4m (£3.1m) prize purse and the winners will equally cut up $1m (£784,000)
Dwell PGA Tour Golf
Friday thirteenth December 6:00pm
Who has received it earlier than?
Day and Ko are defending champions after final 12 months’s one-shot victory over Conners and Henderson, with Swedish pair Ludvig Åberg and Madelene Sagstrom ending two strokes again in third place.
Theegala and Tom Hoge received the final version of the QBE Shootout earlier than it was scrapped, with Kuchar and Harris English three-time champions of the occasion in its outdated format.
Highlights from the ultimate spherical of the 2022 QBE Shootout on the Tiburon Golf Membership in Naples, Florida.
How can I watch reside on Sky Sports activities?
There might be three hours of reside protection from every of the three rounds, with protection beginning at 6pm on Friday and 7pm on Saturday earlier than switching again to 6pm for the ultimate day.
The match is one among two reside on Sky Sports activities Golf this week, with the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Championship reside from 10am on Thursday and Friday earlier than beginning at 9.30am over the weekend.
Who will win the Grant Thornton Invitational? Watch all through the week reside on Sky Sports activities. Dwell protection from the opening spherical begins on Friday from 6pm on Sky Sports activities Golf. Stream the PGA Tour and extra with NOW.
