LPGA Wrapped — Team Rocco wins Grant Thornton Invitational
The IX: Golf Thursday with Marin Dremock, Dec. 19, 2024
Here we are at the end of 2024, so let’s do a little “LPGA Wrapped” or “LPGA Replay” (depending on your Spotify or Apple Music allegiances). And we’re getting statistical: Here are the top five leaders in some stat categories from the 2024 LPGA Tour season.
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(Editor’s note: This is the last Golf Thursday of 2024. The IX is off next week, and will return with Golf Thursday on Jan. 2, 2025.)
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Strokes Gained
- Nelly Korda (2.41)
- Jeeno Thitikul (2.30)
- Lydia Ko (1.93)
- Ayaka Furue (1.90)
- Haeran Ryu (1.89)
Average Driving Distance (yards)
- Natthakritta Vongtaveelap (290.61)
- Kaitlin Milligan (287.37)
- Polly Mack (284.40)
- Laura Wearn (280.02)
- Maria Fassi (276.88)
Driving Accuracy (%)
- Allisen Corpuz (84.77)
- Marina Alex (84.48)
- Megan Khang (84.43)
- Hyo Joo Kim (82.96)
- Ayaka Furue (82.83)
Greens in Regulation (%)
- Jeeno Thitikul (77.20)
- Haeran Ryu (76.80)
- Nelly Korda (76.02)
- Mao Saigo (75.70)
- Lauren Coughlin (74.47)
Scrambling (%)
- Ayaka Furue (66.43)
- Lydia Ko (65.51)
- Lilia Vu (64.80)
- Lindsey Weaver-Wright (64.71)
- Narin An (64.09)
Putts Per Round
- Sandra Gal (28.64)
- Yue Ren (28.76)
- Danielle Kang (28.84)
- Pavarisa Yoktuan (28.98)
- Jin Young Ko (29.05)
Bogey Free Rounds (in rounds played)
- Ayaka Furue (15 in 89)
- Lydia Ko (14 in 71)
- Ruoning Yin (13 in 71)
- Celine Boutier (12 in 86)
- Jeeno Thitikul (11 in 58)
Official Wins (in events played)
- Nelly Korda (seven in 16)
- Lydia Ko (three in 20)
- Hannah Green (three in 20)
- Ruoning Yin (three in 20)
- Lauren Coughlin (three in 25)
It’s been such a fun year on the LPGA Tour. An electric Solheim Cup, a star studded Pro-Am at The ANNIKA, a new, super skilled Epson Tour class, unreal career moments from Nelly Korda and Lydia Ko, another major at the home of golf, Olympic competition and so much more.
There was so much talent to watch this year, and next year will pack just as hard a punch. I’m looking forward to it.
See you next year, golf fans!
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This week in women’s golf
Patty Tavatanakit, Jake Knapp win second edition of the Grant Thornton Invitational
Ally Ewing celebrated end of LPGA Tour career with new puppy, Founders Award
Charley Hull went viral in 2024. Is a breakout season next?
Five at The IX: Patty Tavatanakit and Jake Knapp come out victorious at the 2024 Grant Thornton Invitational
It was down to the wire this year at the Grant Thornton Invitational. After several lead changes and charges from multiple teams, the team of Patty Tavatanakit and Jake Knapp took home the 2024 Grant Thornton title. They won one stroke over team Tom and Jerry, Tom Kim and Jeeno Thitikul. Here’s what the victorious Team Rocco, whose members coincidentally won individually on the same day earlier in the season, had to say after their week of competition.
Q. When did you guys realize that you won on the same day earlier this year?
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: I always new that, I just didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to jinx it. I was very close on mentioning it yesterday but I was like, you know what, I’m going to wait.
JAKE KNAPP: I remember seeing when I won like two other Bruins had won like Champions Tour and LPGA Tour.
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: It was you, me and Bronte on the same week this year.
JAKE KNAPP: Yeah, I think something like that happened when I won on the Canadian Tour as well. It was definitely in the back of my head, but until we finished the round today I had no idea.
Q. Patty, I’m curious if you can just talk about the arc of your season. It was very emotional earlier in the year when you won and just kind of where that took you in terms of confidence.
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: I feel like how I started the season was like highs of highs, right? Back-to-back wins. Then I felt like I just hit a plateau for a little bit.
Was figuring out my putting. I went through eight putters this year and to be able to finish off finding something that OK, this is going to be my gamer next year, it’s a nice feeling. I feel like my game was really up and down. I didn’t finish my season the way I wanted to. To cap it off to play good golf on this course that I didn’t two weeks ago was a really good feeling.
Q. For both of you, is that as much fun as y’all have had on the golf course maybe ever? It just looked like you two enjoyed it so much out there.
JAKE KNAPP: Yeah, kind of an inside joke between my caddie and I is like not really out there to have fun in my opinion. I treat it very much like a job and it’s like winning is fun. So I try to go out there and play the best I can. It’s not that I’m not trying to enjoy myself by any means, but I take golf very seriously and I expect a lot of myself.
So a week like this felt a little bit on the opposite end of the spectrum, like let’s just make sure we enjoy it. Don’t get to do this very often. It’s the first time meeting each other. You also just don’t want to give off that bad energy for your teammate. If you hit a bad shot, whatever it is.
Even when I hit a bad one, she was the first one patting me on the back. So it just made it very, very easy even when you’re making some mistakes and whatnot, just carry on and go about your business.
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: I think Jake also got a heads up from Alison to babysit me, so he won Best Babysitter of the Year Award.
Q. Patty, I know confidence is a hard thing to come by when you’re slogging it on the LPGA and trying to bet everybody in the field every week. You looked so much more confident and comfortable this week. Was it just having that validation from playing with him or was it the validation that you’re rolling the rock really well and playing some great golf?
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: Yeah, I feel like Jake was the biggest help out of all the factors, but if anything, I feel I found something those two weeks off just working on some stuff, getting through thoughts in my head. I was just really clear coming into the week even though like guys, practice round, I don’t know how — I wouldn’t have known how I would play because I was so stressed out. I was literally like push cutting my drives and I was like I don’t want to put Jake in a bad spot. He really helped me on the first day just like free it up and send it. I hit a couple good ones and I found some good feels that worked this week and we were able to close it out.
Q. And then finally, obviously Lydia’s talked about this tournament, that win really lifting her to a solid season next year. For both of you, what are you both looking forward to in 2025 and having some momentum from a really fun week out here with the Grant Thornton?
JAKE KNAPP: Hopefully more of this, hopefully more interviews, more trophies. Just trying to — I think next year I would like to be a lot more consistent just throughout the season.
You know, similar issues, I don’t think I played as well the second half of the season as I would have liked. This was my rookie year, so there was a lot of new courses and things like that I kind of feel like I’m more settled in, I know what’s going on, I know my schedule and I can just focus on the weeks ahead.
PATTY TAVATANAKIT: Yeah, for me, I think I’m excited going into the next season. I feel like getting the gist of what I actually have to work on, like I kind of see a very clear direction on what I’m taking just overall with my game. So I’m excited to take some time off and get back to work in January.
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