Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand and Jake Knapp completed a wire-to-wire victory at the Grant Thornton Invitational on Sunday at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla.
Tavatanakit holed a long birdie putt at the par-3 16th hole to tie Jennifer Kupcho and Akshay Bhatia for the lead. Knapp followed it with a birdie tap at the par-5 17th as the team shot a 7-under-par 65 to finish the event 27 under.
Kupcho and Bhatia had made a late push with an eagle at No. 17, but a bogey at the par-4 last hole pushed them back to 25 under, and Tavatanakit and Knapp pulled away.
Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand and Tom Kim of South Korea birdied the last hole to sneak past Kupcho and Bhatia for second at 26 under. Both those teams shot rounds of 64 in Sunday’s modified four-ball format.
Tavatanakit and Knapp each won $500,000 for winning the second annual mixed team event.
“I feel like I just always tried to give Jake a lot of security out there and just tell him, ‘Send it,'” Tavatanakit said. “So yeah, I putted well this week and I just feel like everything’s been fun. I feel like our chemistry has been really, really good, we’d just talk about random things. A lot of golf nerd stuff.”
Though not an official PGA or LPGA event, it marked the second win of the year for both Knapp, who was a PGA Tour Rookie of the Year finalist, and Tavatanakit.
Tavatanakit and Knapp made the most of Friday’s scramble format and shot a 58 to set the early pace. They carded a 66 Saturday playing foursomes (alternate shot) and led by two entering Sunday.
They put up an eagle at the first but had just two birdies between Nos. 2-13 while Kupcho and Bhatia picked up the early momentum by birdieing six of their first nine holes.
“I think it was just positive vibes, I don’t think there was any type of game plan necessarily,” Kupcho said. “I think it was just being positive like, âHey, we’ve still got this, like it’s fine,’ like just like plugging along basically.”
The Canadian pairing of Brooke Henderson and Corey Conners fired a 10-under 62, tied with Megan Khang and Matt Kuchar for low round of the day, and placed fourth at 24 under. French duo Celine Boutier and Matthieu Pavon (65 Sunday) finished fifth at 21 under.
