World Cup of Golf plans to shake things up with mixed gender teams

A huge shake-up is being planned for the World Cup of Golf that will see mixed gender teams taking part for the first time in the tournament's history. 

Golf's World Cup tournament has been staged since 1953 but only recently it has been staged as a biennial tournament with Belgium's Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry the last winners when it was played two years ago in Australia. 

According a report in The Guardian today, Origin Sports Group - where multi-millionaire Sir Keith Mills is director - is in talks to boost the competition's prize pot from $7 million to $10 million with one female golfer lining up with one male golfer for each qualifying nation. 

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The new proposals are not expected to come into force this year but are more than likely expected for the 2022 tournament. 

"The PGA Tour is working on a variety of options to potentially relaunch the World Cup of Golf and we've been in touch with them on several concepts," Origin Sports told The Guardian. 

A spokesman for the PGA Tour said: "We’ve looked at new ways to promote the game of golf through new formats and certainly an event that would include PGA Tour and LPGA players is something that we will continue to explore."

The revelation comes just six months after the European Tour and Ladies European Tour announced a joint partnership for a tournament in Sweden, which is being hosted by Henrik Stenson and Annika Sorenstam.