What’s the Best Strategy for a Mixed-Team Format?

Let’s talk about strategy at the Grant Thornton Invitational.

This tournament features three different formats over its three days of competition: a scramble, foursomes (Alternate Shot), and modified four-ball. Most of the strategy comes into play in foursomes, where teams decide which player tees off on the odd-numbered holes and which tees off on evens.

Theoretically, tee boxes are set up so that if both the men and the women played their own ball, neither player would have an advantage. However, in a mixed-team alternate shot format, this setup shifts the dynamic: the female player often faces longer approach shots than usual, while the male player benefits from slightly shorter ones.

Generally speaking, an advantage plus a disadvantage nets out to an advantage. The increased chance of a birdie from the male pro being closer on the approach will outweigh the disadvantage of the female pro being farther away on her approach. In other words, on a course full of 18 identical par 4s, I’d expect better results on the nine holes where the LPGA Tour player hits the tee shot and the PGA Tour player hits the approach, at least through the first two shots.

Looking specifically at the Grant Thornton, below is the tournament scorecard, which displays the yardages from both the PGA Tour and LPGA tees. Some holes offer a significant difference in yardage from each respective tee, while other holes were set up at the same yardage for both the men and the women.

The cumulative differences between the PGA Tour and LPGA tees are 293 yards on the odd-numbered holes and 301 yards on the evens, nearly the same. However, as far as strategy is concerned, you want to focus on the holes that offer the best scoring opportunities, par 5s and short par 4s.

Unless player skill sets are extremely unusual, you want to have the LPGA player tee off on the odd-numbered holes and the PGA Tour player on the evens at the Grant Thornton. Why? Well as shown above, the par-5 14th hole used the same tee box for both the PGA Tour and LPGA players. On the other three par 5s – Nos. 1, 6, and 17 – there were between 40-80 yards of difference between the tees. By having the LPGA player tee off on the odd-numbered holes, teams give themselves a very strong chance of making birdie or better on the first and 17th holes. Other odd holes, like the ninth, also offer a significant advantage, but the par 5s have the most variance and should be the top priority.

I should also note that three of the par 3s fall on even-numbered holes, which lends credence to having the better iron player tee off on the even-numbered holes. Though the better iron player could differ depending on the team, I’d be inclined to have the PGA Tour player hit those shots, especially since the eighth hole was set up at the same distance for both the men and the women. This only reinforces the benefits of having the LPGA player tee off on the odd-numbered holes.

The Grant Thornton is not equipped with ShotLink, but I watched the broadcast on Saturday and noted the off-the-tee strategy for the 13 teams (out of 16 teams in the field) shown on the telecast. Of those, seven teams teed off with the LPGA player on the odd-numbered holes, including eventual winners Patty Tavatanakit and Jake Knapp and the day’s low scorers Jeeno Thitikul and Tom Kim (64). Those seven teams (68.3) outperformed the other six teams by almost a full stroke (69.2) on average. With ShotLink data, we’d be able to get more detail about where the teams gained their advantages, as well as the strategies of the three remaining teams.

These numbers reflect a very small sample size, and they don’t control for the skill levels of each pairing, so take them with a grain of salt. Still, the evidence supports having the LPGA player tee off on the odd holes. With more data, I’d expect this approach to consistently yield better results.

As we look ahead to future editions of the Grant Thornton and also other potential mixed-gender formats at the Olympics, I would expect teams featuring a long-hitting female golfer paired with an elite male iron player to thrive. A Korda-Scheffler pairing might be impossible to beat!

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.