From loans to the leaderboard: Back in golf, Ben Griffin shines at Players Championship
Two springs ago, Ben Griffin wasn't walking the fairways of the Players Championship. He didn't hold a PGA Tour card. He wasn't even playing professional golf.
His focus then? The kind of numbers that aren't on a golf scorecard.
"I could imagine, you know, a homeowner going under contract and we had to finance a loan," he said. "That's about it."
From golf to the mortgage industry to golf once more, and now challenging the best in the world, Griffin is marking a Players Championship debut that's among the most unlikely on the leaderboard.
A resident of St. Simons Island, Ga., originally from Chapel Hill, N.C., the 26-year-old Griffin closed Friday's storm-suspended session as the clubhouse leader with 6-under 138. He held the lead until a wide-right tee shot on the closing 18th spun him off course to a double bogey.
On Thursday, following a bumpy start with bogeys on two of his first four holes, Nos. 11 and 13, he regained his rhythm and finished with a flourish, sinking birdies on his last three holes at 7, 8 and 9. That brought him a 5-under 67, enough to conclude his first Players evening in a tie for third with Taylor Pendrith and Justin Suh when darkness suspended play.
Not bad for a player who stepped away from the sport two years ago following a collegiate career at the University of North Carolina -- one who, as of the week's start, didn't even have a Wikipedia page.
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From March to August 2021, he said, he placed his golf career on hold to work as a loan officer in the mortgage industry. That summer, he came back, first on the Korn Ferry Tour and then advancing to the PGA Tour over the fall.
While Griffin had previously taken on the Players Stadium Course almost a decade ago at the Junior Players, he said he had little real recollection of the course apart from a bad memory while in the next-to-last group.
"My ball got stuck in a tree, just short of the green on No. 1, those over hanging palms," he said. "So that's actually my only memory from the event."
And although he's not yet a household name, he's been steadily climbing his way up the leaderboard. He's made 11 of his last 12 PGA Tour cuts and has placed in the top 35 or higher in seven of his last eight, including a tie for 14th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.
"I was sneaky in the mix, so coming in here, it's the same field, it's the same players, it's just me versus the golf course. If I play well, I know my name is going to be up there," he said.
He's also climbed to 35th in the FedEx Cup standings and 78th in the World Golf Ranking.
Unlike the Florida Gators' football home, maybe there won't be a stadium named for this Ben Griffin. But if he puts together three more rounds of golf like the first, the former loan officer can carve his name into the Stadium Course's history -- for keeps.
"I have a nice perspective of having worked a desk job," he said. "It helps me out there have fun, because I know at the end of the day, I'm just blessed to be playing golf."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: The Players Championship 2023: Ben Griffin starts fast in debut
