NAPLES, Fla. — The Grant Thornton Invitational provides a rare opportunity for the many top players on the LPGA and PGA Tours to see each other’s matches up close. It’s a week of mutual admiration and, in many cases, an opportunity to learn something new. With so many different teams on the field this time around – only three were returners from last year – the week started with a simple hello and ended with a friendly welcome. joke and smile during the only co-sanctioned event between the two circuits. The 32 players have won 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, JT Poston). Here’s what players had to say about what they learned from their partners this week at Tiburon Golf Club:
Jason Day on Lydia KoI was telling him earlier about being able to be paired with females this week, because we only see them on TV and we know how good they are, how precise they are, how good their short game is. and how well they putt. So obviously I’m playing with a Hall of Famer and so I can understand how she feels, why is she playing this shot, how is she playing this shot, because I’m out there , you know, watching her disappear in my fade. I think his fade is so much better, he goes down with less effect, he goes forward. Mine is kind of that low flared cut that I’m trying to work on. That’s good, I know I’m going to take a lot of what I talked about with Lydia this week and try to focus on my game, on how I can implement some of the conversations that we We had there, especially with the iron game.
Nelly Korda on Daniel BergerYou know, I love his process on the greens, he’s very diligent as well. He is a very fine player. We were kind of talking about it the first day. I never hit my shots really hard and I like to feel it, and it does the same thing. So I always appreciate it when a player shows their artistic side. It’s been really fun watching it the last couple of days and hopefully we can put on another show tomorrow.
Andrea Lee on Max GreysermanMax has great hands, I just want to take his short game and put it in my golf bag or golf set. I learned so much just watching him make his way around the golf course, around the greens, how he reads his putts. I’m learning a lot.
Jake Knapp on Patty TavatanakitOverall, there’s a lot to the golf swing in terms of certain feels. She shoots the bullet. I draw it from time to time, but I generally like to play sort of fades. We do it very differently and it’s just kind of fun to reflect on certain feelings with each other. Like after she made that shot at 18, she was talking about a certain feeling she was working on. It’s kind of funny, you never know when you’re going to pick something that might work for you. So I might go and hit a few afterwards and after seeing how she did it, maybe try some of these things.
Brooke Henderson on Corey ConnersOn Friday, Jeeno said he was like a machine and he really is, it’s so good. Even just a green reading this week, he was helping me read my putts and just that little bit of confidence, he was reading them really well, and I feel like I’m able to make more putts than I don’t do it sometimes on tour. It was really nice. Overall, having such a calm and positive partner with really good energy has really helped my game and I hope I can continue to do so in the future as well.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: What PGA Tour and LPGA Players Learned From Each Other at Grant Thornton