Who’s Ben Griffin? 10 issues to find out about 2-time PGA Tour winner
Ben Griffin is on a critical heater.
Until you’re a golf fan that has been dwelling beneath a rock for the final month, you in all probability know that he’s gained twice – Zurich Traditional of New Orleans with Andrew Novak and the Charles Schwab Problem – and completed T-8 on the PGA Championship, his finest outcome In a significant. He enters the ultimate spherical of the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, one stroke again of Scottie Scheffler and out of the blue he’s trying like a critical contender for the U.S. Ryder Cup workforce. That is one of many many good the explanation why it is about time you get to know Griffin.
Mortgage-loan officer stint
Griffin, 28, is finest recognized for stepping away from his profession as an expert golfer to change into a mortgage mortgage officer in his native North Carolina.
“I’d misplaced my motivation and love for golf. The stress of taking part in with $15,000 of credit-card debt was agony, so I give up,” he advised Golf Digest. However he resurrected his profession in 2021 and has banked greater than $11 million in 94 Tour begins.
“It supplied me with a reset button,” Griffin tellsGolfweek. “Doing one thing utterly totally different is nice for getting a contemporary headspace.”
Traveled the junior golf circuit solo
Griffin grew up taking part in golf along with his dad and grandpa. By the point he was 16, he was driving to tournaments solo and staying in lodges as a result of each of his mother and father had been working. “I’d inform the entrance desk, ‘Look, my dad is coming to verify us in, don’t fear. He’s on a name and operating behind. I simply want a room key.’ It labored each time.”
Bleeds Tarheel Blue
Each his mother and father went to the College of North Carolina and he grew up in Chapel Hill, practising on the College of North Carolina Finley Golf Course. As soon as he began going to school there, his teammates complained that qualifying wasn’t truthful. “I knew each break on these greens,” he mentioned. “It was a very simple transition for me.”
Do away with the yardage e book
Griffin suggests an distinctive answer for gradual play – enable rangefinders (which the Tour is at present testing) however ban the yardage e book.
“I feel it could really velocity up play. Play the course the way it appears to be like. I do know it’s old-fashioned however try this and make it new faculty with a rangefinder,” he mentioned.
Maxfli Man
A 12 months in the past, Griffin was testing golf balls. His caddie instructed he strive Maxfli, the as soon as well-liked model within the Nineteen Seventies and ‘80s, which has change into a Dick’s Sporting Items home model. He’d by no means used it earlier than. “I used to be shocked by the ball velocity numbers,” he mentioned. Griffin mentioned he gained 2 miles per hour off the tee with out sacrificing something from a spin standpoint. He started utilizing it in Tour occasions earlier than he negotiated a deal to signify the model.
The story behind his Aviator-style sun shades
Like Corey Hart within the ’80s traditional tune, Griffin would not put on his sun shades at evening however he is been sporting sun shades on the course for the reason that 2024 RBC Canadian Open final June, the place he completed second, on account of seeing floaters. Since that first week with a designer knockoff model he occurred to have in his bag, he’s relied on U Swing sun shades. “It hasn’t affected my imaginative and prescient – I nonetheless see floaters – however they darken issues and make the floaters much less outlined,” he mentioned. “I feel additionally they assist me with studying greens and seeing slopes higher.” For the total story on why he Venmo-ed $20 to professional CT Pan for the pair he wears, click on right here.
The genesis of his deadly quick recreation
After successful the Charles Schwab Problem in Could due to an assortment of tidy up and downs, Griffin was requested how he developed such a dependable quick recreation. His eyes watered and his voice cracked as he defined how his mother and father endured some robust occasions financially in the course of the 2008 recession. Griffin’s household needed to downsize their house and quit the nation membership membership. There wasn’t a lot cash to spend on golf, not to mention vary balls. However his mother and father made certain there was a public golf course for him to make use of. “I might chip and putt all day,” he mentioned. “I might hit possibly a half bucket of balls for $5 or no matter it was, and my mother and father, they all the time thought of themselves center to higher class, however I knew there for a bit of bit after we misplaced our home, after we misplaced all the pieces. I do know they sacrificed lots for me.”
The silver lining for Griffin? He turned a short-game magician.
He appreciates a great garden
Griffin moved final month from St. Simons Island, Ga., to Jupiter, Florida, and one of many advantages shall be having a garden in his yard, the place as a child he appreciated to do some chipping. Griffin has a sponsorship cope with TruGreen, an official PGA Tour associate, and took part within the model’s advertising and marketing marketing campaign alongside Patton Kizzire and Jason Day.
“It was a really Hollywood expertise,” mentioned Griffin, who’s trying ahead to getting the total TruGreen expertise at his new pad. “I belief myself on a course, I’ve obtained to belief them with my garden.”
Way of life change
Griffin stopped ingesting alcohol in the course of the season and adopted a vegan food plan on the suggestion of his girlfriend.
“Some folks deal with meals like leisure, however meals is gas. I eat for power. Analysis says veganism helps with irritation. I’ve by no means felt higher,” he advised Golf Digest. “I wanted to cease ingesting in the course of the season. I didn’t have a ingesting drawback, however I used to be ingesting like I used to be nonetheless in faculty. Once you drink persistently, you suppose you are feeling good, however you don’t. Now I really feel unimaginable.”
Distance achieve is for actual
Griffin not solely dropped the booze however began taking creatine. “You continue to started working actually arduous. I am doing it extra from the standpoint of muscle restoration, gaining muscle mass. You continue to need to work out if you are going to achieve energy. It isn’t just like the complement goes to repair all the pieces,” he mentioned. “However I might say on Tour in all probability 60 or 70 % of fellows are taking that substance.”
It is working. He is averaging 176 mph ball velocity this 12 months, up from 172 in 2024, and has gained about 17 yards off the tee.
“The final three, 4 months, I actually type of locked in on that, making an attempt to realize velocity — making an attempt to nonetheless keep flexibility and mobility. I imply, it is vital. I am on the highway each week, I am flying, I am driving automobiles, none of it’s good for my physique.
“My type of purpose has been to swing more durable, get, like, a mile-per-hour sooner or so each week or two. And I’ve simply been on this good trajectory proper now. I am making an attempt to not push it an excessive amount of, however undoubtedly aware of making an attempt to hit it a bit of bit additional. And I feel I swing higher after I hit it more durable. It is bizarre, I really feel like after I’m swinging arduous I am really like hitting it type of straighter. It is funky. Golf’s a bizarre sport, however right here I’m. I assume I am an athlete now,” he mentioned.
Griffin identified that it was his arduous work within the gymnasium and never creatine, which has keyed his new-found size off the tee.
“I am taking a bunch of various issues. I handed my final drug take a look at. I am not doing something unlawful right here from two weeks in the past. I am simply making an attempt to do the fitting issues to care for my physique,” he mentioned. “I am understanding more durable than I ever have, so I obtained to verify I am consuming loads of protein. And, yeah, I really feel like I am doing the fitting issues, simply obtained to maintain plugging alongside, and I am going to preserve taking creatine.”