Gearing up for the Grant Thornton Invitational

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This week, we’re diving into the last LPGA Tour event of the calendar year: the Grant Thornton Invitational. It’s a tour-wide favorite; LPGA Tour stars team up with their PGA Tour counterparts for a thrilling mixed-team event to close out 2025. Let’s preview this year’s event.

From Dec. 12–14, the Grant Thornton Invitational will visit Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Fla. as its venue for its third year. LPGA players will provide vital advice and insight, as they just competed on the course in their season-ending CME Group Tour Championship a few weeks ago. 16 teams will battle it out in three rounds for the title, playing in scramble, foursomes and modified four-ball formats.

Among the 16 teams is the defending champion team of Patty Tavatanakit and Jake Knapp. Lydia Ko and Jason Day, the 2023 championship team, are also returning to try to edge out the competition. Both of these pairs have potential to take home the title. Tavatanakit has only missed four cuts out of the 22 starts she had on tour this season, and Knapp has only missed six cuts out of his 23 starts. The two have a few top-10s under their belt this year as well.

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Ready to run it back @gtinvitational ⏮️ 🏆 pic.twitter.com/3N2NDN4Q0Q
— LPGA (@LPGA) December 10, 2025

Ko and Day bring experience and composure to the tournament, and their combined coolness and clutch moments can lend them a hand in making a push for the top. Ko capped off another stellar season on tour with a Hall of Fame honor at the 2025 Rolex LPGA Awards. She notched a win at the 2025 HSBC Women’s World Championship and added four more top-10 finishes to go along with it. Ko and Day’s team format experience combined with their consistent play could win them a second title.

A little putting magic from Lydia Ko 🪄✨ #LPGALookback pic.twitter.com/nFOpSuDvmk
— LPGA (@LPGA) December 9, 2025

Rob Bolton’s power ranking for the 2025 Grant Thornton Invitational puts the team of Jennifer Kupcho and Chris Gotterup at number 8, but I agree with his statement that they’re the “sleeper team.” Both Kupcho and Gotterup have had late-season pushes to propel their way up their respective tours rankings. But a team that’s ranked a bit lower than I would have hoped is the dynamic Gen-Z duo of Lottie Woad and Luke Clanton. The Florida State pair have had hot starts to their professional careers so far.

Unsurprisingly ranked at first for Bolton and for me is the Canadian duo of Brooke Henderson and Corey Conners. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The neighbors from up north finished tied for second and fourth in the first two iterations of the Grant Thornton, so they’re poised to have a breakout tournament. Henderson has had a consistently good season with one win, and Conners, though without a win of his own, has been lurking on scoreboards the whole season. He’s only missed one cut out of the 21 starts he’s made in 2025 and has seven top-10s. It’s about time for a victory, and his partner’s got all the tools to help him towards it.

Come right back here next week to see how it all went down. See you then, golf fans!

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Five at The IX: Quotes from the 2025 LPGA Q-Series Final Qualifying stage

On Tuesday, Dec. 9, the top 25 and ties from the 2025 LPGA Q-Series Final Qualifying stage earned 2026 LPGA Tour membership. Some of those players will be rookies on the LPGA Tour in 2026, while others will be returning to action. After several days of unpredictable weather, changes in course conditions and partial round completions in Mobile, Ala., the results were finally decided. Here are some post-tournament interview quotes from some of the top finishers on that list, thanks to the folks at LPGA Communications.

Q-Series complete! ✅

Here are your Top 25 and ties that will receive LPGA Tour status for the 2026 season! pic.twitter.com/Jzf6xSU5pi
— LPGA (@LPGA) December 9, 2025

Helen Briem (1) on dealing with the adverse conditions and long week of golf:

“I mean, the first day got canceled right away or suspended, so we’ve had a similar situation in Taiwan. Therefore I was I mean you can never be prepared for something like that, but I mean if you made it once, you can make it twice. So you just gotta know what works and what doesn’t work. So yeah, that was great to have Taiwan as a preparation, and we’ve had quite some other tournaments that had suspensions very much as well. So you just gotta keep going.”

Soo Bin Joo (2) on lessons learned from losing her LPGA Tour card and gaining it back:

“Yeah, so this year, 2025, was my first year of having a full card on the LPGA. But unfortunately, I lost that, and that’s why I was here this week. I’ve learned a lot, playing in big tournaments, about my mental game on the golf course. How I need to manage myself on the golf course, and I think that’s what I focused on.”

Ryann O’Toole (T3) on her mindset during her journey to returning to the LPGA Tour:

“Yes, this week, first off, the last time I was here was 2014, and I told myself after that week, I never want to have to be back. But you never know what happens, and here I was back having to re-qualify. It’s stressful, it’s a grind, it’s mentally and emotionally draining. Then this week, with just the weather, I mean it being freezing, being the delays, the rain, every single morning was early, between 5-6 a.m. wake-ups, it was early. It became a physical grind. I just think there’s so much emotion that goes into this that it is a tough week.

“I think obviously, with you know, fifteen years on tour, there are mixed emotions going into it. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to decide to go back to Q school or if I was just going to start the next chapter of my life. But at the same time, it would be really weird to start January one and go, what do you mean I don’t have full status? Like, what do you mean? I’m not a, you know, professional on the LPGA anymore? That wasn’t okay for me. So I wanted to come back out here. I wanted to get my status, I wanted to play to start the year, and play the year. And being one of the oldest out here is weird. I just played two rounds with someone who’s seventeen, so that makes you feel even older and puts it in perspective of how long you’ve been out here. But you know, to see that I still hit it just as far or further than them and can keep up and still play well, that age is just a number. So I’m really happy to, you know, still be proud of that and still feel like my game is progressing versus the opposite.”

Jing Yan (T3) on pushing through the tough week:

“Yeah, it’s definitely very challenging ’cause we had kinda all four seasons this week. I just tried to play my normal game and tried not to think about it too much. Think about if once you do that, it can really get to you. So yeah, the golf gods give what they give and you just have to try to make the best of it.”

Laney Frye (T7) on playing this qualifier after already gaining her LPGA Tour status through the Epson Tour Championship:

“It was kind of like playing with house money. I was able to play freely and not put too much pressure on myself because I didn’t have as much to lose, I guess. I think anybody here is in a good spot, but having the status kinda locked up, it’s just a bonus.”

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Gearing up for the Grant Thornton Invitational — Quotes from 2025 LPGA Q-Series Final Qualifying

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Five at The IX: Quotes from the 2025 LPGA Q-Series Final Qualifying stage

Written by Marin Dremock