Your Guide to the Grant Thornton Invitational

This week sees something new on the LPGA and PGA Tours, a mixed team event with players from both tours competing together in a unique co-sanctioned event.

The Grant Thornton Invitational was announced in February and is set to debut at Tiburón Golf Club and The Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburón.

This precedent-building event will allow players from the LPGA TOUR and PGA Tour to compete for an equal prize and visibility – a format new to the current era of professional golf.

To give this some context, the last time the two tours held an annual mixed-team competition was in 1999, when John Daly and Laura Davies won the final edition of the JCPenney Classic.

Here's all you need to know about the Grant Thronton Invitational.

The Teams

The Grant Thornton Invitational has a 32-player field comprised of 16 LPGA and 16 PGA Tour professionals. Teams have been finalised over the last couple of months and the final line-up features a good mix of American and International players:

Madelene Sagstrom and Ludvig Aberg
Allisen Corpuz and Cameron Champ
Brooke Henderson and Corey Conners
Lilia Vu and Joel Dahmen
Lydia Ko and Jason Day
Celine Boutier and Harris English
Nelly Korda and Tony Finau
Lexi Thompson and Rickie Fowler
Leona Maguire and Lucas Glover
Mel Reid and Russell Henley
Cheyenne Knight and Tom Hoge
Andrea Lee and Billy Horschel
Megan Khang and Denny McCarthy
Charley Hull and Justin Rose
Ruoning Yin and Nick Taylor
Rose Zhang and Sahith Theegala

We're sure there are going to be some popular pairings amongst golf fans, we're particularly looking forward to seeing Lexi Thompson and Rickie Fowler and Charley Hull and Justin Rose teeing it up together.

The Format

The Grant Thornton Invitational will be contested over three rounds and consist of 18 holes of Scramble, 18 holes of Foursomes (Alternate Shot) and 18 holes of Modified Four-Ball.

Friday 8th December - Scramble

Each player hits a tee shot and then the team selects the ball to be used for the next stroke. From there, both players hit their next shots from that spot. This process continues until the ball is holed.

Saturday 9th December - Foursomes

Hitting alternate shots by each member of the team, using the same ball, until the ball is holed.  One player tees off on the odd-numbered holes, and the other tees off on the even-numbered holes.

Sunday 10th December - Modified Four-Ball

Both players tee off, and then they switch balls for their second shots and play that same ball until it is holed. The lower score of the partners is then counted as the team score for the hole.

The Course

Located in Naples, Florida, Tiburón Golf Club features two 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed courses, The Gold and The Black.

This week the players will be playing on the Golf Course which opened in 1998. It's a par 72 and can play as long as 7,382 yards. We're yet to see the set up.

The course will be very familiar to the LPGA Tour players as this is the venue of the season ending CME Group Tour Championship which took place three weeks ago where Amy Yang took home the title.

The Prize Money

The total prize fund for the Grant Thornton Invitational is $4 million, with the winning team receiving a $1 million cheque. Only the top 16 teams will receive prize money.

How to watch

There will be nine hours of live broadcast coverage, including four hours of network television. The first day of competition will be televised on Golf Channel from 1-4 p.m. ET and second-round coverage will begin on Golf Channel from 2-3 p.m. ET before moving to NBC from 3-5 p.m. ET. Final round coverage will follow the same pattern with the first hour of competition televised on Golf Channel from 1-2 p.m. ET before switching to NBC from 2-4 p.m. ET.

In the UK coverage will be on Sky Sports Golf starting at 6pm on Friday, 7pm on Saturday and 6pm on Sunday.

View the full live leaderboard here.