Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2023 Grant Thornton Invitational

2023 Grant Thornton Invitational Fantasy Sleeper Report

It’s a new tournament and a new format to see off the old season.

The Grant Thornton Invitational will see player from the PGA TOUR pair up with a player from the LPGA TOUR, joining forces for a 54-hole, three-day extravaganza that will promote all of the usual vagaries of pairs golf.

The opening 18 holes is played to Scramble rules, a bizarre format in which both players tee off, the best ball is chosen and then both players hit their approaches from within a club length of the chosen drive. The same thing happens for shot two, three and so on.

The second round is classic foursomes, where the best drive is chosen and the other player then plays the second shot, and so on (alternating until their ball is safely in the hole).

The third round is modified four-ball, where both drive off before swapping balls for their second shots and until the ball is holed. The lowest score of the two is then marked down on the card.

That should all become much clearer when we watch the action unfold on TV, but needless to say at least one player in the pair needs to be a strong ball-striker in order to keep with the demands of birdie-fest golf that these formats dictate.

At least Tiburon Golf Club, our Naples, Florida host venue, plays ball when it comes to breaking par. This is an easy layout that the pros can scorch when on form – Amy Yang won the CME Group Tour Championship here in November with a score of -27, while the QBE Shootout (the PGA TOUR event that this has effectively replaced on the schedule) was regularly won with a score of -30 or lower on Tiburon’s Gold Course.

For all the marketing fluff, this Gold Course is easy to tame, although it should be said that there’s plenty of water hazards around and some of the greens feature pretty nasty run-off areas – including on the Par 3s, which from the men’s tees are a good old hit (three of the four measure 200 yards or more).

From the championship tee boxes, the track will play around 7,382 yards for its Par 72, with the ladies’ tees providing some relief for a total yardage of 6,595 yards.

The conditions and the format lends itself to complementary pairs; those who, if combined, would form an outstanding player with few areas of weakness in their game. Would that be Tony Finau and Nelly Korda, Ludvig Aberg and Magdelene Sagstrom, Charley Hull and Justin Rose or one of the other groupings?

With just 16 pairings in the field and quality throughout, your chosen sportsbook will offer a spread of odds between 6/1 and 25/1 on each and every duo this week – not exactly prime meat for those seeking succulent long odds prices.

Nevertheless, we’ve picked out a few of the groupings that catch our eye to conclude our 2023 Grant Thornton Invitational sleeper shortlist.

[membership level=”0″]

You must be a Premium Member to view our exclusive fantasy golf picks.

Already a member?  Sign in Here.

[/membership]

[membership level=”1,2,3″]

Harris English & Celine Boutier – 12/1 – There will be plenty of intrigue in this pairing, which brings together a Tiburon GC specialist with one of the finest talents in women’s golf.

It would be fair to describe 2023 as a year to forget for English, from a golfing perspective at least, but he would have been practicing hard ahead of a return to a layout where he has won the QBE Shootout three times with Matt Kuchar and also finished runner-up twice.

As for Boutier, she requires no introduction. The Frenchwoman claimed the Evian Championship earlier this year, has won six times on the LPGA TOUR and is ranked third in the world. 

Tom Hoge & Cheyenne Knight – 20/1 – Here we have an intriguing combination of an elite iron and wedge player on the PGA TOUR with one of the most accurate drivers on the LPGA TOUR.

Long time readers will know that Tom Hoge is a riddle that we haven’t always been able to crack; believe us when we say there’s few players in world golf as good as he is on approach. But his driving is routinely mediocre and his short game is average at best – hence why he’s not recognized as one of the best on the planet.

At least with Knight on board he’ll be able to flex his muscles from the fairway more often. She has found a remarkable 81.5% of fairways on the LPGA TOUR in 2023 – a truly remarkable effort, and a great bonus in this format of golf where the tee shot is all important.

Cameron Champ & Allisen Corpuz – 25/1 – What happens when you pair one of the longest hitters in world golf with one of the LPGA Tour’s most reliable ball strikers?

You get gold, potentially, which is why the Cameron Champ and Allisen Corpuz pairing catches the eye despite the relative lack of form of both.

Champ briefly rallied with a pair of top-20s early on during the Fall Series, while Corpuz hasn’t banked a top-10 since August.

But the potential of a bomber and a player that ranks 11th on the LPGA TOUR for GIR is hard to overlook entirely.

[/membership]

Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Grant Thornton Invitational here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2023-2024)

Cover photo via Instagram