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Grant Thornton Invitational: Charley Hull and Michael Brennan finish three behind in second | Golf News
England’s Charley Hull and playing partner Michael Brennan finished tied for second after the final day of the Grant Thornton Invitational mixed team event, three shots behind the winners.
The pair were just one shot off the lead going into the final round after going 17 under par on day one and then one under on day two.
Andrew Novak made three straight birdies on the back nine and Lauren Coughlin finished off their nine-under 63 in modified fourballs for a three-shot victory on Sunday, the second team title this year for Novak.
They were challenged primarily by Chris Gotterup and Jennifer Kupcho until the par-five 17th at Tiburon Golf Club. Gotterup and Kupcho both missed the green in tough spots and had to work hard for par.
Novak and Coughlin were in the final group behind them, and Novak poured in a six-foot birdie putt that gave them a two-shot lead going to the final hole.
Coughlin’s birdie putt helped them set a tournament record at 28 under. They finished three ahead of Gotterup and Kupcho (63), Denny McCarthy and Nelly Korda (63), and Brennan and Hull (65).
Novak also won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Ben Griffin, the only team event on the PGA Tour. He jokingly said it would be the “modern day grand slam” to get the mixed-team title that pairs PGA Tour and LPGA Tour players.
Novak said he didn’t get a sense of how close it was until seeing a leaderboard on the 13th green, and even then knew he and Coughlin had one advantage.
“We had more holes than anyone else,” he said, referring to the number of birdie chances down the stretch. Novak holed a seven-foot birdie putt on the 13th, followed by a pair of 10-foot birdie putts on the 14th and 15th and what effectively was the clincher on the 17th.
In modified fourballs, both players hit tee shots, then play the other’s golf ball the rest of the way with the low score counting on the card.
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Earlier this year Charley Hull made a valiant attempt to claim her first major win at the AIG Women’s Open with a three-under 69 in the final round at Royal Porthcawl, but she ended up two shots shy of Miyu Yamashita
What is the Grant Thornton Invitational?
The 54-hole competition is a mixed-team event that sees 16 LPGA Tour and 16 PGA Tour professionals compete together in a unique co-sanctioned tournament.
The three-day tournament offers three different formats of team play and allows the 32-player field to compete for equal prize money and visibility.
It is the second successive year the tournament has featured on the schedule, having been launched in 2023 as the first co-sanctioned event between the LPGA Tour and PGA Tour since the JCPenney Classic in 1999.
