Grant Thornton Invitational returns to Tiburon Golf Club

Some of the top pros in golf are hitting the links at Tiburon Golf Club in North Naples. The Grant Thornton Invitational pairs some notable names from the PGA and LPGA Tours.

Marquee pairings are back together from last year’s debut event such as Rickie Fowler and Lexi Thompson as well as the defending champions, Jason Day and Lydia Ko. However, other teams are getting to know each other.

“We’ve never met each other,” Akshay Bhatia said about his pairing with Jennifer Kupcho. “Obviously I’ve known of her success but yeah we met for about five minutes at the cocktail party so not a lot of chemistry yet.”

You couldn’t tell that by looking at the leaderboard as Bhatia and Kupcho are in second place after shooting 13 under par.

“We meshed really well, our personalities our caddies, we all had such a good time,” Bhatia answered. “Jennifer and I tried to come up with a team name. That didn’t work. You know just try to make things light and enjoy this week.”

Before last year, there wasn’t a mixed team event since 1999. Now, this is becoming a weekend these pros look forward to.

“It’s really cool to interact with the men,” Celine Boutier said. “We really don’t really cross paths during the year so its fun to be able to interact with them and learn somethings here and there.”

“It’s interesting just to hear him and his caddy talking out on the fairways and through every shot,” Kupcho explained. “I would say its different than how I think. It’s just interesting to see how they’re doing and exciting to see our tours together for the growth of the game as well.”

LPGA Tour golfer Brooke Henderson said, “I think we make a really great team and it’s a lot of fun for me to be paired with Corey (Connors) and I was really happy were able to do this again this year. I feel like the runner up finish was so fun last year but also stirring a little bit. So hopefully just take that as a little extra motivation into these next two days.”