The Grant Thornton Invitational presents a rare opportunity for many of the best players on the LPGA and PGA Tours to get a close-up look at each other’s games. It’s a week of mutual admiration and, in many cases, a chance to learn something new.
With so many different teams in the field this time around – only three were returners from last year – the week started with a simple hello and ended with friendly banter and smiles at the only co-sanctioned event between the two tours.
The 32-player field combined to win 22 times in 2024, including 16 wins from six LPGA Tour players (Lauren Coughlin, Lydia Ko, Nelly Korda, Patty Tavatanakit, Jeeno Thitikul, Lilia Vu) and six wins from five PGA Tour players (Akshay Bhatia, Nick Dunlap, Jake Knapp, Matthieu Pavon, J.T. Poston).
Here’s what players had to say about what they learned from their partners this week at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples:
Jason Day on Lydia Ko: I was saying to her earlier, to be able to be paired with females this week, because we only see them on TV and we know how good they are, how accurate they are, how their short game is and how well they putt. So obviously I’m playing with a Hall of Famer and for me to be able to pick her brain about what she feels, why does she play this shot, how does she play this shot, because I’m out there, you know, looking at her fade to my fade. I’m like her fades so much better, it comes down with less spin, it goes forward. Mine is kind of this flare weak cut that I’m trying to work on. It’s nice, I know that I’m going to take a lot of what I’ve talked with Lydia this week going forward and trying to focus on my game, how I can implement some of the conversations that we’ve had out there, especially with the iron play.
Nelly Korda on Daniel Berger: You know, I love his process on the greens, it’s very diligent as well. He’s a very much finesse player. We were kind of talking about it on the first day. I never hit my shots really full and I like to feel it in, and he does the same thing. So I always appreciate that when a player shows his artistic side. It’s been really fun watching him the past two days and hopefully, we can put on another show tomorrow.
Andrea Lee on Max Greyserman: Max has great hands, I want to just take his short game and put it into my golf bag or golf game. I’ve just learned so much just watching him plot his way around the golf course, around the greens, how he reads his putts. I’m learning a lot.
Jake Knapp on Patty Tavatanakit: Just overall a lot of golf swing stuff in terms of certain feels. She draws the ball. Like I draw it every once in a while, but I usually like to play kind of spinny fades. We swing it very differently and it’s just kind of fun to pick each other’s brains about like certain feels. Like after she hit that shot on 18, she was talking about like a certain feel she’s working on. It’s kind of fun, you never know when you’re going to kind of pick something up that might work for yourself. So I might go hit some after and after seeing how she hit it, maybe try a few of those things out.
Brooke Henderson on Corey Conners: On Friday Jeeno said he’s like a machine and he really is, it’s so good. Even just green reading this week, he was helping me read my putts and just that extra little bit of confidence, he was reading them really well, and I feel like I was able to make some more putts than I sometimes do on tour. Just that was really nice. Just overall just having a partner that’s so calm and positive and has a really nice energy about them I feel really helped my game and hopefully I can take that into the future as well.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: What PGA Tour, LPGA players learned from each other at Grant Thornton
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