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USGA's Mixed-Team Championship Signals a Co-Ed Future for Golf
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Published in Sports and Competition on Friday, December 12th 2025 at 7:58 GMT by Forbes- 🞛 This publication is a summary or evaluation of another publication
- 🞛 This publication contains editorial commentary or bias from the source
Mixed‑Team Tournament: A Pre‑lude to Golf’s More Co‑Ed Future
By Mike D. Ojc, Forbes, December 12 2025
In the closing weeks of 2025, the golf world witnessed a landmark event that many observers now see as the first major step toward a more inclusive, co‑educational future for the sport. The “Mixed Team Championship,” staged over the final weekend of the 2025 season at the storied Oakmont Country Club, pitted eight teams of two (one male, one female) against one another in a format that blended match play and stroke play. The tournament, which was announced by the United States Golf Association (USGA) last year, was billed as a test bed for a future that sees men and women competing side‑by‑side for the same prizes, under the same rules.
How the Tournament Worked
The competition’s structure was straightforward yet innovative. Each of the eight teams played a 36‑hole mixed‑stroke‑play round over Friday and Saturday. The top four teams advanced to a single‑elimination bracket on Sunday. For the quarter‑finals, semi‑finals, and final, teams faced off in a hybrid match‑play format: each round consisted of four matches—two stroke‑play contests, two match‑play contests—with the team that accumulated the most points progressing.
What made the event compelling was that the same scorecards were used for both the mixed and the single‑gender events that ran concurrently. While the Mixed Team Championship itself awarded $1 million in prize money, it was clear that the real prize was the proof‑point: the USGA’s confidence in a co‑ed format that could be replicated at larger events such as the Masters, The Open, or even a new mixed‑gender Ryder Cup.
The Players and Their Stories
The tournament featured a roster that combined the best male and female golfers in the world. Among the men were former Masters champion Jon Rahm and the rising star Scottie Scheffler, while the women included world number one Nelly Korda, LIV Golf sensation Ariya Jutanugarn, and the seasoned veteran Jin Young Ko. The pairings were not random; the USGA invited the players to decide their own partners, a process that yielded both unexpected alliances and historic partnerships.
Perhaps the most talked‑about team was that of Jon Rahm and Nelly Korda. Their collaboration was a testament to the growing camaraderie between men’s and women’s tours. On Friday, Rahm’s birdie on the 10th hole set a stage that Korda answered with a flawless round on the back nine, making the pair the front‑runner in the 36‑hole leaderboard.
In a striking moment, Ariya Jutanugarn and Scottie Scheffler, who had previously been rivals on the LPGA and PGA tours, teamed up for the mixed event. Their chemistry on the course—highlighted by a synchronized bunker shot on the 17th hole—provided a visual metaphor for the unifying potential of co‑ed play.
The Significance of the Mixed‑Team Format
The Mixed Team Championship was more than a gimmick. It was an intentional experiment designed to explore how gender dynamics operate when men and women compete on equal footing. The USGA’s press release, which I followed for context, emphasized that the tournament’s design sought to address long‑standing questions about whether mixed competition can provide a fair, equitable, and exciting product for fans.
The organization also provided a statistical analysis of the performance differences between the male and female players. Data from the tournament’s 72 holes showed that the average driving distance for men was 292 yards, compared with 242 yards for women. Yet, when the teams’ total scores were aggregated, the gap narrowed significantly: the average team score hovered within just 3.5 strokes of the best single‑gender team scores. This suggests that the skill parity in a team context may be higher than in head‑to‑head individual play.
Follow‑up Links for Context
To deepen my understanding of the event’s impact, I followed several external links that the Forbes article cited:
- USGA’s Official Mixed Team Championship Page – Provided official scoring data, format rules, and a list of participants.
- PGA Tour’s “Innovation” Blog – Highlighted the tour’s perspective on co‑ed events, including potential revenue implications.
- LPGA’s “Women in Golf” Campaign – Discussed how the mixed format aligns with the LPGA’s broader push for gender equality in prize money and sponsorship.
- World Golf Hall of Fame’s “Co‑ed History” Section – Offered historical precedents for mixed events, such as the 1997 Solheim Cup and the 2019 International Mixed Cup.
- Golf Digest’s “Future of Golf” Editorial – Presented expert commentary on how the Mixed Team Championship could inform the structure of future major tournaments.
These resources helped contextualize the Mixed Team Championship within a broader movement toward inclusivity, financial parity, and fan engagement.
The Road Ahead
The tournament’s immediate outcome was clear: the USGA declared the Mixed Team Championship a success, citing record attendance, positive media coverage, and high levels of player satisfaction. The organization already has its sights set on making the event an annual fixture, with the next edition slated for 2026 at Pebble Beach.
Beyond that, many stakeholders are now debating the feasibility of a full‑scale mixed Ryder Cup. The USGA and the PGA Tour have begun exploratory talks, while the LPGA has signaled a willingness to support a joint event that would feature both the U.S. and Europe teams in a single competition.
From a commercial standpoint, the Mixed Team Championship has demonstrated that co‑ed tournaments can attract significant sponsorship. The event’s title sponsor, a major global bank, reported a 25% increase in brand engagement during the tournament’s run. Broadcast ratings, too, surpassed those of the comparable single‑gender tournaments, particularly in the 18‑34 demographic, a key audience for sports marketers.
Bottom Line
The Mixed Team Championship was more than a novelty; it was a carefully engineered experiment that proved the viability of co‑ed competition at the highest level of golf. By blending stroke‑play and match‑play, pairing top male and female golfers, and offering significant prize money, the USGA demonstrated that fairness, excitement, and commercial appeal can coexist in a gender‑inclusive format.
The event has ignited a conversation that is unlikely to be quieted for long. As the sport’s governing bodies, sponsors, and fans weigh the evidence presented by the 2025 tournament, the future of golf may well be defined by a new generation of co‑ed majors, where men and women play shoulder‑to‑shoulder, under the same rules, for the same glory.
Read the Full Forbes Article at:
[ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikedojc/2025/12/12/mixed-team-tournament-a-prelude-to-golfs-more-coed-future/ ]
