Bringing to life the old adage that golf is about math rather than art, Ben Griffin won his first individual title on the PGA Tour at the Charles Schwab Challenge by getting across the finish line on a difficult, windblown Sunday at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
After starting the final round eagle-birdie to jump ahead of Matti Schmid, with whom he shared the 54-hole lead, Griffin didn’t make another birdie but turned in a grinding afternoon of work to earn his second victory in his last five starts. Griffin and Andrew Novak teamed to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in late April.
Griffin’s victory wasn’t assured until the final putt, a 4-footer he made to beat Schmid by a stroke after a final twist on the finishing hole. Leading by two at the closing par-4, Griffin left his second shot in an awkward spot on the bank of a greenside bunker, forcing him to play his third shot while gripping the club on the shaft.
“It felt like I was playing whack-a-mole with that third shot,” said Griffin, who finished at 12-under-par 268.
When Schmid holed a pitch shot for a birdie from a steep bank near the 18th green, it forced Griffin to make his par putt, ending a long, twisting afternoon.
“In my head I was thinking Matti was probably going to make that,” Griffin said.
“I felt pretty good over [the winning putt]. I just trusted it.”
Griffin, who led by five strokes early in the final round, made four bogeys in an 11-hole stretch, allowing Schmid to stay close while the challenging conditions kept anyone else from making a serious run at the leader.
Fighting to maintain his lead, Griffin made consecutive par putts on the 14th and 15th holes from 12 and 8 feet, respectively, that felt like birdies.
The victory was another step in Griffin’s continuing climb in the game. Saddled with debt and disheartened by his performance, Griffin quit pro golf and became a mortgage loan officer for a time in 2021.
He returned to golf in 2022, earned a PGA Tour card for the next season and has finished in the top 65 in FedEx Cup points the last two campaigns. With his victory at Colonial, Griffin jumped to fifth in the points race and pushed himself deeper into consideration for the U.S. Ryder Cup team this fall.
Bud Cauley continued his career resurgence with a third-place finish, his fourth top-six finish after starting the year playing on a major medical extension.
“I feel like I’m doing a lot of good things,” Cauley said.
“Today it’s obviously disappointing doubling [No.] 13 there. It’s not even so much swings. It’s decisions out there and trying to get over that hump, but happy with my game and just a couple of little things and get over the edge.”
Without doing anything spectacular, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler finished T4 the week after his PGA Championship victory. It was Scheffler’s sixth consecutive top-8 finish.
“I think Friday probably hurt me in terms of winning this tournament, but overall three of the four days I played what I felt was pretty solid. Just had one off day [a second-round 71], but outside of that, I did some good things this week as well,” Scheffler said.
Ron Green Jr.