Ben Griffin figured a fall tour in Mexico was as good a time as any to try something new.
Having already secured his spot at all of next year’s Signature Events, Griffin arrived at the World Championship of Technology with a loose roll in the back pocket. With nothing status-related on the line for him at El Cardonal in Diamante, Griffin decided to make an under-the-radar gear change for the week by swapping out his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 for a TaylorMade Spider Tour X Black. Griffin finished the PGA Tour regular season ranked 19th in Strokes Gained: Putting, but wanted to see if a switch from a blade to a mallet would elevate his game on the green.
The move paid off as Griffin shot a final-round 63 to beat Chad Ramey and Sami Valimaki by two to win his third PGA Tour title of the season. Griffin’s shooting experiment was born out of an examination of the 18 players who finished ahead of him in the shot put and the common trait they all share: a wooden mallet.
“I’ll probably switch tomorrow,” Griffin joked about his new player after the win. “It’s here to stay for now. I don’t know. It’s been a fun week trying that machine. I actually looked at the stats a lot this year. I was 19 in Strokes Gained: Putting, and I believe I was the best blade player on Tour at 19, and all these guys ahead of me went from blades to hammers.”
Ben Griffin’s WWT Championship Winning Highlights
There were no strokes gained at El Cardonal, but Griffin finished second in the field in Putts per Greens in Regulation at 1.59. The putter swap also comes after Griffin’s last PGA Tour start, where a by three shots Sunday in the Procore Championship cost him a chance to get into a playoff against Scottie Scheffler.
of FedEx Cup Fall is a pressure cooker for pros trying to play their way into the top 100 to keep their card, and for those hoping to earn a spot in next season’s first two Signature Events via the Aon Next 10.
But for gamers like Griffin, it’s a chance to keep sharp while also testing out new and different gear.
“It was just something I thought about, what would happen if I used a sledgehammer, and I felt like this was a good week for me to try it,” Griffin said. “Because so many guys here are competing to try to get into the top 60 in the Aon Next 10 and qualify for Pebble and Riviera, guys are trying to finish in the top 100 to keep their cards. For me, I didn’t have much to lose, so it was a really great week for me to be able to experiment a little bit, so maybe I would have used it next season. an opportunity to see what would happen if I tried a hammer gauge.”
Griffin said he has worked with 15 different hammers in his home studio. He eventually settled on the TaylorMade Spider Tour X Black after feeling good about it before heading to Mexico.
“I was messing around with the spider putter. It felt really good up there and I took it out on the course, so Saturday and Sunday before I flew out here, I played a couple of good rounds and said why not, see what happens. It sure worked,” Griffin said.
With the win, Griffin joined Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy as the only players to have won three or more times this season. Griffin won the team event at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Andrew Novak and then took the No. 2 seed at the Charles Schwab Challenge a few weeks later. Those victories headlined a year that has now seen Griffin earn a spot in the Ryder Cup and climb into the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
“It’s been a year of progress,” Griffin said. “I had a feeling after I got the first win, I felt I was going to win at least one more soon, and of course I did. I feel like I’ve just had so many positive experiences winning the first stage, and then I’ve had enough experiences where it’s gone in the opposite direction where I’ve learned a lot. I feel very confident and calm here.
“Any time I can be on a list with those two names, it means I’m doing something really good. It was helpful not having both of those guys on the field this week.”
The other thing Griffin, Scheffler and McIlroy have in common? Now everyone uses it a version of the TaylorMade Spider shooter.
That is, until Griffin decides to make another smooth change.
