Ben Griffin on Sunday in the course of the fourth spherical of the Bermuda Championship.
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Ben Griffin’s collapse on the Butterfield Bermuda Championship on Sunday was not a fast dying.
It wasn’t one mistake that was the rookie’s undoing at Port Royal Golf Course.
Instead, it was an extended, sluggish bleed for Griffin. First, there have been the back-to-back bogeys on 12 and 13. Then the unplayable off 14 tee led to a 3rd bogey. The powerful bunker shot on 15. The tee shot within the penalty space on 16, and it was capped off by the water ball from 17 tee, regardless of laying again with an iron off the tee.
He went rapidly from a two-stroke lead, and it being his event to lose, to doing precisely that.
Seamus Power hangs on to win Butterfield Bermuda Championship as Ben Griffin stumbles
Jack Hirsh
“Not how I wanted to [finish], but it was playing tough out there,” Griffin stated after the spherical. “Those are some of the toughest holes coming down the stretch, especially trying to win a PGA Tour event. I tried my best. I had a couple shots get loose in the wind and you’ve got to be a little bit better, more precise when it gets windy like that or else you can kind of grind for pars and bogeys quick. That happened to me. You know, I couldn’t believe my tee shot on 16. I was able to draw it as much as I did against that left-to-right wind. I figured there was no way if I tried as hard as I could to draw it, it would end up left, so that was a bummer.”
But all through the methodical collapse, Griffin’s head by no means dipped. He by no means seemed bewildered. It didn’t even seem that the smile he carried for most of the first 63 holes left his face fairly often.
“You know, playing golf for a living’s just really fun,” he stated of his demeanor. “It just means the world to be able to compete out here and I can’t get mad at anything that I do because it’s so cool to be able to play on the PGA Tour.”
It is sensible Griffin has that type of perspective, given he in all probability by no means anticipated to be close to the lead of a PGA Tour occasion. He give up skilled golf in 2021 and took a job in a mortgage workplace.
It took convincing from associates and individuals who noticed his sport, plus a sponsorship, to get him again into chasing his dream of turning into a PGA Tour professional.
This week was simply his eighth PGA Tour begin, and simply his fourth as a member, after incomes his card final season on the Korn Ferry Tour.
He had a top-5, final season on the Wyndham Championship, however that end was on the power of a 64-64 weekend. Sunday in Bermuda was the primary time he’s actually been in competition.
For the 26-year-old, he was simply soaking within the expertise.
“Every single time I’m competing out here I’m trying to learn and gain as much as I can from each and every round so I can be better moving forward,” Griffin stated. “I’m very snug out right here. Honestly, I want to be virtually just a little bit much less snug in sure conditions as a result of I want to ensure that I’m once more executing and being assured with my swings. I simply let a pair get free and I missed it on the fallacious aspect on just a few holes down the stretch, would short-side myself downwind with chips and couldn’t get it shut.
“I just put myself in too many difficult spots to come out as the champion this week.”
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