Yes, Ben Griffin is going to play in the John Deere Classic this week. It’s not news, since the North Carolina native plays almost everything, but this endless streak is still surprising. Let’s put things in perspective. This is week 27 of the year 2025, and Griffin is going to compete at TPC Deere Run (Silvis, Illinois) for the twenty-third time. He has only missed four weeks of competition, therefore.
But the matter is even more intriguing because, of those four tournaments he didn’t play, he had no chance to participate in three of them, as he wasn’t eligible for the field: Sentry, Masters, and RBC Heritage. He only missed the Canadian Open by choice. Granted, it’s very likely that if he had been eligible for those three mentioned tournaments, he would have sought other weeks to rest, but it’s also possible that he wouldn’t have…
Additionally, during the last months of 2024, he played seven of the eight PGA Tour events scheduled for the autumn.
His excellent numbers likely explain Griffin’s decision. He has won two tournaments (Charles Schwab and Zurich Classic in pairs with Andrew Novak), finished second in the Memorial, and achieved two top ten finishes in Majors (PGA and US Open)… “Yes, some players win and maybe change their schedule, take a break, try to celebrate or relax or whatever. I’m trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m playing really good golf and that there’s still a lot at stake every week on the tour,” he explains.
The fact is that this week, whether we look at the world ranking or the FedEx Cup standings, Ben Griffin is the main favourite in the John Deere, a tournament where many of the top players in world golf are certainly absent. And he accepts the challenge without problems, acknowledging that his mindset has changed. “I no longer have to worry about being in the top 70 to get into the Playoffs. I no longer have to worry about being in the top 100 to keep my card. Now I can focus on stepping on the accelerator and trying to win,” he explains.
But there is an even higher goal that is also decisive in his determination to keep playing before resting next week (he won’t be at the Scottish Open) and returning to action at the Open at Royal Portrush, the last Major of the year. And that is the Ryder Cup. He knows that right now he would have many chances of being one of the captain’s picks, but he still hopes to get into the top six so there is no doubt about his presence at Bethpage. “I don’t necessarily want to rely on being a captain’s pick. I feel that if I keep playing really good golf, even if I were just outside the top six, I would be pretty confident that I would have a good chance of being on that team. But I definitely want to be within those six,” he concluded.
