Adorable story behind Allisen Corpuz-Sahith Theegala team at Grant Thornton Invitational
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What's in Sahith Theegala's bag at Grant Thornton
Written by Cameron Morfit
Each of the 16 teams at this week’s Grant Thornton Invitational has a backstory.
In some cases, the PGA TOUR player and LPGA partner share the same agent. Some teams feature similar passports – Brooke Henderson and Corey Conners from Canada; Céline Boutier and Matthieu Pavon from France. Jason Day and Lydia Ko, of course, are the defending champs.
And yet there’s one team with a unique origin story.
Sahith Theegala, 27, grew up in Southern California, was a star at Pepperdine and has one PGA TOUR win. Allisen Corpuz, 26, grew up in Hawaii, was a star at USC, and has one LPGA win.
Theegala’s parents are from India. Corpuz’s folks are Filipino (dad) and Korean (mom).
So, what’s the connection? It’s a deep one, and pretty darn cute.
“When Sahith turned 6, I was still looking for tournaments for him to play,” Murli Theegala, Sahith’s dad, wrote in an email to PGATOUR.COM. “The minimum age for the junior golf tournaments was 7. Meanwhile I heard about Callaway conducting annual Junior World golf tournament in San Diego. In 2004, they opened up a 6-and-under division for the first time. Just found out about two weeks before the event. Got him entered into the event.
Sahith Theegala and Allisen Corpuz holding their trophies after winning the Junior World golf tournament in San Diego. (Courtesy Murli Theegala)
“On the first day of registration,” Murli continued, “when me and Sahith got out of the car, we met a little girl named Allisen Corpuz and her tall dad Marcos from Hawaii and she was going to play in the 6-and-under girls’ division. The reason for me to mention Allisen was, both Sahith and Allisen won the Junior World that year, respectively, in the boys and girls division.”
The photo of the two, sitting side-by-side and beaming with their trophies, is adorable and would make a great how it started next to a how it’s going image of them accepting the Grant Thornton Invitational trophy on Sunday. (Memo to the cuteness gods: It’s all in your hands now.)
Oh, and that chance meeting in the parking lot all those years ago? It has led to an enduring friendship between Sahith’s mom and dad, Karuna and Murli, and Corpuz’s parents, May and Marcos.
See for yourself: There’s Murli, a superfan on the PGA TOUR and LPGA alike, spraying the champagne after Corpuz won the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach last year.
