Hottest player in golf boosted by game's bias and getting to lie longer in bed

Daily Record

2 days ago

Ben Griffin opens up on the bonuses of surging into the highest ranks
Buoyant Ben Griffin says mixing with the elite is maintaining his stunning elevation in golf.
The American star is the hottest player in the game at the moment having won twice recently at the Zurich Classic and Charles Schwab Challenge.
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Griffin's success has seen him mixed with the biggest stars such as Scottie Scheffler and Masters champ Rory McIlroy in the tee-timings with broadcasters and fans wanting too see him.
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The American has noted the alteration and said: 'I'm just playing with new golfers now. The way the tee-times work on the PGA Tour, you kind of have feature groups, you have categories where you're in a winner's category. So someone like me, I was never, unless I got lucky, got paired with them on the weekends,
'I was never playing with the Scottie Schefflers or the Rory McIlroys, some of these top players, and now I'm just playing with different golfers. Going back to before Zurich, I'm just playing with guys that haven't won on tour and you almost feel like there's two separate tours in a way on the first couple rounds because I'm always playing with the same kind of guys.
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'I was always playing with Charlie Hoffman, with Bo Hassler or some of those guys and it's funny, we joked about it, like everyone in kind of our same category would play a couple times a year and you'd go on stretches where you played with the same guy three times in a 10-week stretch or something like that. But now I'm obviously going to be playing with some new faces, guys that I'm cordial with in the locker room and everything, but I've never really played rounds with. So it's fun. It's a new experience.
'First year on tour, I'm in the Korn-Ferry category, so I'm at the back end of the wave, kind of battling sunsets early in the year. The greens aren't quite as good because everyone's stepped on them. And then my second year, I was kind of in a category where I was playing more early, so I'd wake up at 4am a lot. Now I'm going to be waking up at a little bit better hour.
"It's probably a slight advantage. I think that's why they kind of do it because they want the best golfers in the world to have the best conditions, I guess, in a way. 'I mean, it's relatively fair. It's as fair as it can possibly get and, the way the tour's set up, it rewards good play. 'All of us as golfers are just trying to play as well as possible and the pot of gold's pretty big at the end of the rainbow if you can keep the pedal down.
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'When you're playing rounds with really elite golfers, the best in the world, you're seeing a lot of really high-quality shots. It helps a ton when you're out there and you're seeing guys make birdies and seeing guys hit good shots. It kind of helps the energy of the group.
'That's one of those things you can't look at stats and see. But when you're in a group, you can feel when the energy's better. That's really fun. It's not like I was playing with necessarily that worse of golfers. Everyone on the PGA Tour was really, really good.
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'But there might have been some days where I was paired with some guys that just hardly made any birdies. Maybe they're past champions or whatever it is and they're kind of at the back end of their career, not hit it quite as far as some of the top golfers in the world, etc. The energy in the group has definitely been nice the last few weeks.
'I don't think it can get any better. Basically, someone said I'm the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour. I feel like I'm playing right now with a ton of confidence, hitting it kind of more or less where I'm looking with a lot of my clubs.
'Golf is cyclical, but it's fun to be on these highs and I'm just going to try to stay on the high as long as possible.
'I always said once I got my first win, it would free me up a ton. I just feel like I'm in a really good place to be an elite golfer.'