Nelly Korda was an early commit to the Grant Thornton Invitational which has draw significant interest from big-name sponsorsWes Sanderson
The newly formed Grant Thornton Invitational is just over a month away from teeing off in Naples, Fla., and major brands have lined up to sponsor the joint PGA Tour-LPGA event. In addition to title sponsor Grant Thornton, the event at Tiburon Golf Club has lined up notable brands including Waste Management, Dow Chemical and Anheuser Busch. Tournament Dir Rob Hartman said they are multiyear commitments to the tournament, spanning beyond year one of the five-year tournament agreement. Financial terms were not disclosed. This year’s mixed event, pairing up 16 PGA Tour and LPGA players to compete in a 54-hole tournament, replaces the PGA Tour’s QBE Shootout at Tiburon. Previous tournament partners such as QBE, Franklin Templeton and UBS remained on as partners for the new event, which runs Dec. 8-10. Hartman said the decisions by those sponsors shows there is a strong interest in seeing an event like this staged and continues to elevate the game of golf as a whole.
EARLY INTEREST FROM THE START: Hartman, who previously ran the QBE Shootout since 2013, said the tournament has seen strong support in all major categories, including ticketing and sponsorships. While Naples has been a staple for both tours in recent years, hosting both the QBE and the CME Group Championship on the LPGA, Hartman said his team saw a shift in purchasing habits for this year’s event. As of last Wednesday, he said ticket sales were up 20% to 50%, depending on the category of ticket. “We’re up in every major category,” Hartman said. “We saw a lot more advance purchases than in previous years, so we’re onto something especially when we’ve really announced only a third of our teams.” The remainder of the field was announced this morning. The event is co-sanctioned between the PGA Tour and LPGA, and teams will compete over three rounds for equal prize money.
A WORTHY INNAGURAL EVENT: Today’s full field announcement contains six from last season’s Top-30 FedExCup points list and 11 from the current Race to the CME Globe top-30, including the top 3 golfers in the season long race. Hartman said that despite the tournament falling in golf’s offseason, he and the team in Naples received “substantial interest” from both tours. Some of the names to commit include the LPGA’s Rose Zhang, Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu and the PGA Tour’s Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose and Joel Dahmen. Beyond the field announcement the event will feature the PGA Tour’s ShotLink technology, but not in its normal capacity. The event will feature the same ShotLink package as last year’s QBE Shootout at Tiburon, but the hope is for it to be a full ShotLink build out in next year’s event and all parties are in active talks to make that happen.
Sahith Theegala won on the PGA Tour a few weeks ago and has grown in popularity since coming onto the tourWes Sanderson
A FINAL PROMOTIONAL PUSH: Following today’s announcement of the final 10 teams, Hartman said they will be taking a larger marketing approach in Southwest Florida in hopes of further bringing out the community. Hartman said the team will be leveraging its strong relationship with both the Naples and Fort Meyers media markets along with trying to ride the interest of the CME Group Tour Championship, which is hosted at Tiburon on Nov. 16-19. “We’ll get a big lift out of field announcement,” Hartman said. “And a lift from having the LPGA here. It’s a nice situation when you’re going to have 60 of the top LPGA players in the world here a couple of weeks before. It’ll be a nice preview of what’s to come.” He added the tournament does not have any plans to do any direct marketing or cross-marketing on-site during the week of the CME Group Championship. “It’s a major event on the LPGA schedule and we’re going to let that event shine,” Hartman said.
NEW EVENT, SAME COVERAGE: The tournament will have a minimum of nine hours of live TV coverage over the tournament's three days. On Friday, Golf Channel will carry the event live for three hours from 1-4pm ET, Saturday Golf Channel will open the coverage from 2-3 before tossing it over to NBC from 3-5 and on Sunday coverage will start on Golf Channel again from 1-2 before concluding on NBC from 2-4. The coverage hours remain the same as last year’s QBE Shootout.
