Ben Griffin has entered a surprising conversation after his second victory on the PGA Tour during the 2025 season and his first individual win.
Griffin, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina, native, followed up his Zurich Classic victory with Andrew Novak with a win at the Charles Schwab Challenge on May 25, 2025. He also earned an 8th-place finish at the PGA Championship and has top 10s at the The American Express, the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld
and Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in 2025.
Griffin is now the only American golfer not named Scottie Scheffler to win twice on the PGA Tour during the 2025 season. And that has caused some to label him as a “dark horse” and “one to watch” for the U.S. Ryder Cup team in September. The Ryder Cup is set to be played at the Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale, New York, from September 26 to 28.
SB Nation writer Jack Milko wrote on X on Sunday as Griffin made his way to the win at Colonial, “Ben Griffin is quickly becoming a dark horse contender for the U.S. Ryder team. He’s currently 18th in the standings and trending up!”
Tom & Marty’s posted on X, “Not giving him lock status, but if the Ryder Cup team was picked today there is no question Ben Griffin is on the team. What a run he’s having over the past month. Nice win.”
Ben Griffin Moved Up to 13th in the Ryder Cup Standings for the U.S. Team After the Charles Schwab Challenge Win
American captain Keegan Bradley will at the very least have his eye on Griffin after his win at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Griffin moved into 13th place in the Ryder Cup standings after his win. According to the Ryder Cup, the top six players in the rankings will earn an automatic spot on the team. Bradley will then select the other six players at his discretion.
Bradley will announce the team in August, according to the Ryder Cup. Scheffler, Zander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Russell Henley are currently in the top 6 spots on the list. Henley currently has 7,877,801 points in sixth place, while Griffin has 5,143,862.
Griffin’s Zurich Classic teammate, and fellow American, Novak, sits in 8th on the points standings list. Harris English is in seventh, with Maverick McNealy, Brian Harman, J.J. Spaun and Patrick Cantlay rounding out the top 12.
Players earned 1 point per $1,000 earned by making the cut at the four major tournaments in 2024, 1 point per $1,000 earned by making the cut at The PLAYERS in 2024. For 2025 tournaments, players earn 1 point per $1,000 earned “beginning January 1, 2025, through the conclusion of the BMW Championship, August 17, 2025 (second FedEx Cup Playoff event),” according to the Ryder Cup. For the 2025 majors, there will be “1.5 Points per $1,000 earned for all players who make the cut at The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open.”
Griffin moved into fifth in the FedEx Cup standings with his Charles Schwab Challenge victory.
Griffin Said His Win at Colonial Can Help Him ‘Silence Some People’
“It’s crazy how fast things can change in this game. Even going back to when I didn’t have any status on any sort of tours, getting onto the Korn Ferry Tour. I mean, it’s a bunch of stepping stones that kind of gets you to the next part of your career,” Griffin told reporters at his press conference after winning the Charles Schwab. “Now I’m at the point where I feel like I’m starting to show that I am an elite golfer. I can compete against the best. It hasn’t really sunk in quite yet here what necessarily I have accomplished at least the last few weeks, but I know that I’m extremely proud and extremely happy with the way my hard work has kind of paid off a little bit recently because golf — I said it was easy. Golf is not an easy game. It’s a very hard game, and you don’t win very often. Some people never win.”
Griffin added, “It’s really cool to get that monkey off the back, going back a few weeks ago, and I feel like now that I’ve done it a couple of times, I just feel super confident in my ability down the stretch. I know it didn’t maybe look like it today, but I felt really calm and confident over a lot of putts today. I don’t know if I necessarily would have felt that maybe a year ago, but I just feel like I’m in a really good place with my golf game. It’s a cyclical game. I have to make sure I keep doing the right things to remember what I’m doing right now, continue to build, and continue into the summer with some big events upcoming.”
Sam Hodde/Getty Ben Griffin celebrates winning the Charles Schwab Challenge with his fiancee, Dana Myeroff.
Griffin, who nearly walked away from pro golf and spent time working as a mortgage loan officer, according to a 2022 PGATour.com profile, was asked if he felt redemption and validation after his win.
“Not necessarily redemption. I didn’t redeem myself for anything, but definitely validation. It’s really nice to get the validation. Some weeks you get validation with a top 10. Some weeks it’s the top 5. Some weeks maybe it’s a made cut if you are grinding through something and it’s a challenging course, but winning is an incredible feeling,” Griffin said. “Words can’t really describe what it feels like to be — I don’t know how big the field was this week. Maybe 120 or 128. Some weeks it’s 156. It’s a lot of guys. There’s a lot of horses in these races. To be the last man standing on 18 is an incredible, incredible feeling, something I’ve gotten to soak in twice in the last month. It’s one that I want to keep feeling.”
He added, “Hopefully I start winning by more than one because winning by one gets a little stressful, but I’m still very proud of how calm and composed I was out there.”
Griffin also said the win gave him a chance to quiet some social media posters.
“You know social media. I try not to look. I really don’t let a lot of anything on social media get to me because it’s the Wild West. Social media is an incredible platform to share moments with people everywhere, and I just saw some people questioning my ability to win individual tournaments or the Zurich doesn’t count, the Zurich shouldn’t be a PGA TOUR event, stuff like that. I just used that as fuel. It’s pretty fun,” Griffin said. “I didn’t care that much that people felt that way. I feel like if I was someone on social media maybe trolling a little bit, maybe it makes sense. I haven’t won individually. I’m just proud that I was able to be the last man standing this week. Now I can silence some people.”
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