NSN Tonight sits down with PGA tour golfer Ben Martin after first round play at the 2025 Barracuda Championship.
hanging out with Ben Martin. 16 huge points in round one. Still some golfers to to play, but I feel like that might hold up at the top. How’d it feel out there? You shot a 64. 64 18 point or 16 points. I wish it was 18 points. I made two bogeies. Um it was a good morning. It was to tell you the truth. Uh it’s a little cool in the morning. I’m getting up there in age compared to a lot of these guys. So, the body wasn’t moving great. Uh so my expectations were low starting the day, but drove it down the fairway on the green on uh started on 10 and two putts and then birdied uh the second hole and kind of got off to the races. Well, we’d love to ask all you guys about this being such a unique event. Elevation, stable fur, get your popcorn ready. Right. There’s a lot of math going on. Like it’s a lot of guessing. You know, we’re starting the morning at 3% then we’re going to five and then seven and then 10. And so, um luckily, you know, Clemson education did me well. There you go. Does this add like more stress on the caddy? Like I I actually never thought about that because I feel like they’ve got to really be more dialed in with like you know being on top of that stuff. Maybe take a little pressure off of you. I’m sure. Yeah. Because uh you know we want to come up usually the way Luke and I work is you know he’s a good player too. We both played together in college and so we kind of come up with you know how far do you you have how far do you think it’s playing? And so there’s a few more variables you know to talk through this week but um we did a good job. Teamed up well. We we seem to be on the same page on most shots and and hit it tight a couple times. How cool is that to be able to share this experience with a a former college teammate being on your bag like that? Oh, it’s been great. He’s been catting for me for probably the last three years or so. And so, yeah, I think the biggest thing with a caddy is you want someone who you just enjoy spending time with because because you’re going to be around a lot Monday to Monday to Sunday, you know, 6, 8, 10 hours a day depending on how how long we’re out here practicing. And so as long as you can stand one another and not get um not get on each other’s nerves too much, then you got a good team. 2014 was obviously a banner year for you, your only win at the Shriners, five top 10s. How close are you to that form of the the younger Ben Martin and just I mean take us inside just the grind it’s been the last 10 years to just keep on keeping on and staying on tour. Man, that’s the tough part about this job. I think I’m third I’m almost 38 now. And so you look back and you’re like man 2014 15 I’m in um I’ kind of started off I was basically a walk on to Clemson and so got a little bit better every year made all American my senior year come out here on the tour get my card lose it but get back out and I’m kind of seeing progression and then uh I think in any career uh when you when you you’re not performing as well as you have in the past you don’t really feel like you’re still ascending. it can be tough and so um it it is nice to uh to have a round like today. This year’s been a grind. I haven’t really performed the way I’ve wanted to, but uh if I if I capped it off with a with a good week this week late in the season, uh it could turn things around. You’re in great shape after round one. South Carolina guy, what do you like about our region? Man, I love that you don’t have the humidity out here. Uh Luke and I were just talking. I mean, we wake up, got a sweater on in the morning, and then it’s it’s perfect in the afternoon, blue skies. We don’t have to worry about an afternoon thunderstorm. So, uh, that there’s perks to being in South Carolina, but I love the Tahoe area. Drink it in while you can in July. So, you’ve actually played in in this tournament, uh, three times previously, have not made the cut, uh, yet here at the Barracuda, but now an opportunity to be in first going into day two. What do you think was the difference for you? Is it just simply that you might just had a good day, you’re feeling good, or does it now having played here a couple times, getting used to the system, getting used to the elevation, is there a factor of that that maybe helped your performance? Yeah, it had some success over at Montre. I think I had a couple top tens over there when we when we were over there a few years ago, but yeah, like you said, no, no real success here at Old Greenwood yet. Uh, but it was, you know, can you I think a lot of times it’s not as much like the course as what kind of form how your game is. And so I put some good decent rounds together last week in Kentucky and didn’t play as well as I wanted to on Sunday, but hopefully keep keep that consistency rolling from last week. Can you tell us about your ball marker based on some quick research? I feel like it’s unique. Tell us about it. Well, uh, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. I mean, how about I think I used to always use a quarter like prior to 1987 the year you were born and it tried to go like as early as I could find like 64, 65, anything with a good golf score number to it. But you’ve moved on from that though. It sounds like I’m more practical now. I’ve already put it in my bag, but I use one of those uh ones that sticks in the ground that that gets nice and that way I’m trying to help the guys I’m playing with like Hey man, I hit your quarter like it was low to the ground. Your 1980 quarter that’s a little fatter than everything else. Our super our superstitions I guess evolve over time, right? Do you have any that are still lingering out there? Put you on the spot. The only one I’ve got now is I’ll usually start Thursday’s round with a titleless one, Friday with a two, Saturday three, Sunday four. I like that. I like that. So, you’re going to be using those three and fours this weekend. That’s for sure. Let’s talk about your Clemson Tigers really quick. They going to get back to the top in this new NIL transfer portal era because I feel like Dabo has been hesitant to really embrace all that. You know, hope hopefully he can prove everybody wrong this year, but um I saw a mock draft earlier and we got uh Clubnick, you know, is back for his senior year. Uh they had him one overall. I hope he hope he lives up to that hype. And then uh two of our defensive linemen were were top 10. And then uh Antonio Williams and our um corner were both all we had five projected first round picks. So this hopefully is our year. I mean we we open the year at home against LSU. So we’ll find out early. Gut check early on what we got going. Well, first things first, best of luck the rest of way. You got anything else for I was just going to ask you the the mentality now going into Friday because it may be different in the fact that the conditions, right? You said even this afternoon the it could firm up, it could get windier, I guess. What is the mindset going into Friday knowing that you’re going to be playing the course in a little bit of a different fashion? Yeah, I think that’s typically what you get out here, right? It’s cooler, softer in the morning and then the afternoon warms up, gets a little baked out and the wind picks up. So, uh, traditionally here, it’s going to play a little tougher in the afternoon and and you know, you see a lot of guys come out like I did today, shoot a really good round, and then for whatever reason Friday. So, I think the goal with that ride is you you kind of all right, yesterday was yesterday, I’m here to do it again today. It’s my best version of today. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can’t um you can’t recreate what you did the day before, but I think you try to recreate, you know, the mindset that you had, what you can control that uh allowed you to play well and not uh come out and try to force, all right, I got to back this up. Well, you’re certainly off to a heck of a start. 16 points, shot a 64 in round one. It is Ben Martin. Thanks so much for the time, man, and best of luck the rest of the way. Enjoy yourself out here, too. Thanks S.
