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Grant Thornton Invitational sparks memories from mixed-team champions

Laura Davies (left) and John Daly (right) chat during the 1998 JCPenney Classic in Westin Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida. (Vincent Laforet/Allsport)

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It won’t be the first time. When some of the best LPGA Tour players tee off with their partners from the PGA TOUR in the Grant Thornton Invitational, the only mixed-team event on either tour, it will spark a lot of memories from veterans. For as unique as the Grant Thornton format is to those playing, this isn’t the first time that pros from both tours have competed as teammates.

From 1960 through 1999, mixed-team tournaments were a late-fall staple. Under various names – the Haig & Haig Scotch Foursomes, the Pepsi-Cola Mixed Team, and finally, the JCPenney Classic – LPGA and PGA TOUR stars got together for a fun week of friendly competition. Past champions from the LPGA include Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth, JoAnne Carner, Beth Daniel, Nancy Lopez, Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster and Dame Laura Davies among plenty of others.

And all who played remember those events fondly.

“It was one of my favorite events because we never really got to see the guys,” said Meg Mallon, who won the mixed event with Steve Pate the first week of December 1998. “You would only run into them in the off-season if you happened to practice in the same places.

Meg Mallon and Steve Pate pose with their trophies at the 1998 JCPenney Classic at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida. (Vincent Laforet/Allsport)

“And we played with the guys who wanted to be there. They respected us. That was also fun.

“We’d have these big dinners every night with Davis (Love) and Mike Hulbert and Curtis Strange. Judy Rankin would cook for all of us – it was a lot of fun.”

Fun was a consistent theme.

“Billy Andrade and I both enjoyed it so much,” said Kris Tschetter, who won the event alongside Andrade in 1991. “Billy is such a team player and we’re such good friends that it was great to be able to spend a week together. Way back in our junior golf days, we were always like, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll get to play in the mixed-team event together someday.’ Then we actually got a chance to do it. And the first time we played, we won.

“We beat Elaine Crosby and Ed Humenik in a playoff. I remember we were on the last hole, hadn’t made a bogey, and Billy left me like a 5-footer for par. I was like, ‘Don’t let this be the hole.’ We had to make it to tie and get into the playoff, which I did.

“But that was just part of the appeal. My dad was caddying for me and my mom was there, so it was a storybook ending – a lot of fun. The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook (where the event was held) was always great. I think it’s the best course in Florida, so it was a wonderful way to cap off the year.”

The format in the old days was a modified alternate shot. Both players teed off and from there, they would hit each other’s balls until they were on the greens. Then they chose the shot they wanted and, whoever hadn’t hit that approach putted first

“One year I played with Dave Stockton, Jr.” Dottie Pepper said. “I might have been the reason he didn’t play the tour much longer. Dave was a die-it-in-the-hole putter and I was a hit-the-back-of-the-hole putter. By the end of the week, he was shellshocked.”

Dottie Pepper (right) chats with Jeff Sluman during the 1998 JCPenney Classic in Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida. (Vincent Laforet/Allsport)

Pepper won the event in 1992 with Dan Forsman.

“I played with three different partners,” she said. “Dan Forsman was the first and we weren’t very good at the beginning. He was a bomber, but he wasn’t very straight. One hole was a dogleg right with water on the right side and as we were on the tee, I looked back and caught him giving himself the sign of the cross.

“But both of us had tremendous years in 1992, so we were supposed to be in the conversation. In the prior years, we hadn’t even teed off on the proper side on the weekend. That was our goal. Just get us on the right side of the golf course and see how it goes. And, sure enough, we won.

“I also had some very good tournaments with Jeff Sluman who is, to this day, one of my dearest friends. The first year we played together, we spent more money on wine in Tarpon Springs, (Florida) than we won. We shipped it out of the tournament office as olive oil, because you couldn’t ship alcohol. The tournament director shipped it all home for us.”

Tschetter also had multiple partners over the years. “I played with Billy for seven or eight years, but I also played with John Cook, Robert Gamez and Chris DiMarco. And it was always fun.

“But it was also important financially for the LPGA players,” Tschetter said. “It was one of our biggest paydays. The year after I won with Billy, I won an LPGA Tour tournament and made like $67,000. I’d made $110,000 for the mixed team.”

Pepper had a similar story. “The year Dan and I won, I had just bought a house and paid cash for it,” Pepper said. “I never told him, but I needed to win a golf tournament so that I didn’t have to take out a loan to pay my income taxes for the next quarter. That win was big for me, personally, but it was big for all the girls. I think it was the largest paycheck Donna Andrews ever made, and she won a major championship.”

It was also a chance for fans to see Hall of Famers from both sides of the game playing in one event.

“I won it with Jerry Pate, and we had a great time,” said Hollis Stacy of her 1977 mixed-team victory. “It was a week where I probably putted better than ever in my life. I made everything. We beat Nancy Lopez and Curtis Strange. But more than that, a lot of great friendships came out of it. We still see Jerry and his wife Soozi and their three kids. And we still see Jay Haas and Fuzzy (Zoeller) who played. All the players really enjoyed it and we were sad when it went away.”

Laura Davies (right) and John Daly (left) in action during the 1998 JCPenney Classic in Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida. (Vincent Laforet/Allsport)

“We learned a lot from each other,” Mallon said. “It wasn’t just us learning from the guys, they learned a lot from us.”

Mallon also has some advice for the LPGA players in the Grant Thornton Invitational.

“Just play your own game,” she said. “Don’t try to do anything extraordinary, or think you have to hit it perfect all week, because they don’t hit it perfect, either. Just play your game and enjoy yourselves.”

Stacy agreed, but she also had some advice for fans. “This format was and is great for golf,” she said. “Everybody should tune in and watch it. You have all these people in Ohio and Minnesota up to their eyeballs in snow and they want to see something different and something good. Well, this is it. This is just what the doctor ordered.”

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Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

What is the kremlin in russia?

The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

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August 11, 2023.

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Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

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