First win on PGA Tour to Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak Winner at Zurich Classic of New Orleans

Winner press conference Zurich Classic with Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin.

We’d like to welcome the 2025 Zurich Classic New Orleans champions, Andrew Novak and and Ben Griffin. Uh guys, is incredible uh finish there coming down the stretch. And uh Ben, I’ll start with you. You’ve had your fair share of close calls and and on tour and you’ve been chasing this for a while, but how how gratifying is it to uh to finally hunt this one down? Yeah. Um I think for both Andrew and I, it kind of felt like it was only a matter of time out here. Um we both put ourselves in the mix a bunch. Um you know, especially this season, but even going back to last season. Um yeah, just a lot of hard work between both of us and um yeah, for me personally, uh it it means the world to finally get it paid off um or to finally get it done and so uh couldn’t think of a better guy to get it done with right here with Andrew. Perfect. And Andrew, coming off the emotion of being in that playoff in Hilton Head last week, how are you able to reset, refocus, and put together another strong performance and get the job done? Yeah, I I played well last week down the stretch, which was good to look back on. Like that was that was a positive. There have been times down the stretch where I’ve had chances and haven’t played particularly well. Uh so I took some positives into this week. Um you know, you never really know when you’re going to get your first one, but uh we put ourselves in position again. Luckily, I had been there for me today and uh you know, he he carried down the stretch and um just so exciting to get our first win together. Awesome. All right, guys. We’ll open up for questions. You have a question, raise your hand. We’ll get a microphone over to you. We’ll start over here with with Brody. Pass one there. Yeah. Yeah, I mean for two guys that have come close and, you know, been waiting for this moment. I’m curious, what was it like having that delay with a three-shot lead, almost having to to sit on this moment finally happening? And what was it like coming back out maybe, you know, trying to get back into it? Yeah, we had the delay yesterday. It was almost the exact same. Like we were on 10T yesterday, we’re on eight green today. Um, you know, we kind of went sat down for an hour, reset, went back out there. Um, it wasn’t, you know, the start we wanted going bogey bogey straight out of it. But honestly, like, you know, it was an hour and a half delay, but it never rained. So, the sun baking on the greens, it firmed up everything. I mean, the greens were getting really crispy, browned out. It made it play very difficult when we got out. It really was almost like a different golf course when we went back out there. A lot lot like firmer bounces basically. So, I think we did a decent job adjusting to that after we kind of recognized it. And um definitely I would say after the delay pars were pretty good score. There probably weren’t a ton of birdies being made after we went back out. Yeah, I mean if he basically uh said everything that I probably would say, but um yeah, I mean starting with a three-shot lead, you know, going into the round we were pretty motivated to kind of expand that and um you never want to, you know, make it as close as you do down the stretch. Um fortunately for us, I think we did a great job hanging in there. Um both of us, you know, Andrew gives me some credit, but um he hit some phenomenal shots down the stretch as well. You know, 17, that T- shot is not easy with the wind off the right um after just seeing Frankie do what he did. And so, um it was awesome to see that, you know, stay on land and um was awesome awesome moment for both of us when I when I got it down. And and Andrew, I mean, you’re on a pretty epic run right now. I’m curious like just how you’ve felt the last few weeks up until maybe an hour ago of that balance of you’re probably having the the biggest career changing run of your career thus far, but also that frustration like of coming so close. Where where did you fall in the balance with that? Um, that’s a good question. I think I’ve done a pretty good job not getting like overly frustrated with the closed shaves. Um, I I’ve been trying to take as many positives from each as I can because the idea is, you know, I I can put myself in the in that position as many times as I’m able to. I want to get better each time I’m in that position. I want to be more comfortable. I want to have things that I can look back on and improve on. So, yeah, it’s frustrating, but it’s also nice going into a tournament knowing you’re playing well. So, uh, you know, coming into this week, I knew I was playing well. Ben’s been playing good golf. This is a perfect golf course for us. Um, there was a lot of confidence coming into this week for sure. Right. One over here. Yeah. Hi. Uh, good evening. Andrew Greenstein at Louisiana Radio Network. Speaking of birdies, can you take us through the 17th hole? You and the team that you were partnered with were tied going into the 17th. Uh, take take us through it. That was the key hole of the tournament. You two birdied, they bogeied. Uh there was another team in there, the Hogard brothers, ended up birdieing on 18, but your birdie on 17, basically won the tournament. Can you take us through that hole? Yeah, the T-shot, they moved the TE’s up. It was 183, tucked pin over there on the left, wind in off the right. Um my play didn’t really change much based on on what they had done. Um, obviously I watched him just hit it in the water, but I’m trying to put it out there to the right, let the wind work it back and and basically just work it up the green. It got moving a bit more than I would have liked uh on the wind, but uh the way that that green kind of sits once it’s landed on ground, it probably is going to stay. Um, you know, it was just off the green, but it wasn’t a terrible spot to leave it for Ben. You know, that’s really a hole where you’re kind of just looking to make three and and go to 18, but Ben had a different idea. Yeah, I mean super super proud of Andrew’s execution on that T- shot. It’s not an easy hole, especially down the stretch. It’s a pivotal hole as as we saw. And one of the biggest things, and I’ve touched on this a couple times in interviews, is you have to stay aggressive on the PJ tour until that last putts hold. And I’m very proud of him for stepping up and and taking on that that shot. And uh leaving me in a position to, you know, it speaks for itself, the putt. Um just to to get it started and see it drop. Uh that that definitely changed the momentum. Um we could almost feel like you know if you go back to 15 the momentum almost switched to to Jake and uh Frankie when um you know my second shot ended up on the back fringe. Andrew rolls it up and we have about 5 feet for par. They’re sitting with you know eight or nine feet for birdie. All of a sudden there could have been a two- shot swing there very quickly and um I’m proud that I was able to knock that putt in. Um they obviously missed and we felt like that was a good opportunity for us to make a statement um on the last few. I didn’t make the putt on the fringe on 16, but again Andrew sacked up and and executed that shot and then 18. We both did a awesome job of staying aggressive to our targets. Uh put it in the fairway. Andrew hit a great iron in the perfect spot to kind of chip it up the green and make a five as easy as possible for us. All right, guys. We’re going to go over here on the right. Hey guys, and and Ben, you kind of touched on it with that how big and critical that 17 uh that birdie putt was. Was that kind of almost like that sense of relief like, oh, all right, we got a little bit of distance, especially since you hit that back nine, you come out of the delay with two bogeies and then it’s just a grinding like par par. It was that kind of the moment where it was like, we can take that that breath and maybe we can go in 18 a little more relaxed. Definitely some relief, but more just fired up. I mean, that that that was that was huge for us. And I mean I I looked over, I made the putt, and all I was doing was looking for someone with a green shirt on cuz I knew we matched. And sure enough, Frankie was wearing a green shirt. So I almost like fist pumped him. And I was like, “Oh, wait. He’s the guy who just hit the water. I probably shouldn’t do that.” Uh found Andrew. But um yeah, you know, no lead safe on tour. You got to stay aggressive down the stretch. That was huge for us. And um yeah, you know, 18’s, you know, it’s still not the easiest finishing hole when you’re trying to lock up a a tour win. And so really proud of the way we both executed shots on 18 and um and I’m proud of the way Andrew lagged up that 12-footer for me to tap it right in. Right, we’ll go over here to Brett. I was never going to make that. All right. Um over here on your left, Brett Martell with AP. Uh Ben, could you give us maybe some background on um what led to your partnership in this tournament and uh and also maybe how it how you felt it helped the team’s confidence or how nice it was to have a partner who had been playing the way that Andrew had been playing the last month. Yeah. Um we were both really excited, I think, to uh to play with each other and it’s been awesome to follow Andrew’s success the last few weeks. you know, I I just missed out on both the Masters and the RBC Heritage, but um you know, leading up to that, Andrew was playing incredible golf. I was playing pretty good golf. Um you know, I had gotten in the mix uh a little bit earlier on in the season, but you know, my last two, you know, the last month I I didn’t play two of the weeks and the other two weeks I finished maybe a top 20 and a top 40. So, you know, my game was fine, but yeah, it was uh the partnership kind of was easy. We’ve we’ve talked about partnering up the last couple years and obviously looking now we should have just started from the get-go two years ago, but that was probably my fault when uh one of my college teammates, Ryan Gerard, um needed a spot a couple years ago and we we we paired together. So, um but yeah, me and Andrew have known each other since junior golf um since probably we were 14 or 15. Um you know, he’s from the Triangle, you know, uh Kerry Raleigh area, North Carolina. I’m from Chapel Hill. He ended up growing up in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Um I was in North Carolina, but we still played a lot of um Carolina’s Golf Association events together. Um different opens. And then as we went into college, we didn’t really play against each other that much until kind of the summertime. He was at Walford. I was at North Carolina. Our schedules were just different. And then uh no, I mean, you guys still play in great events. We just uh for some reason didn’t play the same ones. Um, we didn’t get invited to those events, but no, we we both uh we both lived in Sea Island. Um, more or less for me the last 5 years. I just made the move down to Florida um further south, but we’ve played in a ton of money games together in Sea Island. We’ve trained with the same strength coach, Randy Meyers, there for four or five years. Um, we’ve done just about everything in our career together. I mean, Andrew has been one step ahead of me, I would say, since uh I got into professional golf. Um, you know, he was on the Cornferry tour and then I got on the next year, then I fell off, he stayed on, he got his tour card, I kept my or I got on the cornfair tour and got my PJ tour card. So, I was one year behind him, but we kind of made, you know, the same progress together um on the PJ tour. And then, you know, if you look at Andrew on the PJ tour the last four season, four seasons, he’s gone from the 126 to 150 category to top 125 to top 100 last year. And now, obviously, he’s in the in the mix to I mean, you probably moved like five or six now in the FedEx Cup. So, it’s been really really cool to see his progress. And uh I think it’s just a full circle moment. And Andrew said that earlier of us, you know, sitting up here together getting our first win. And I feel like we’ve had a had similar tracks to where we are today. All right, going to go back to Brody up here. Since Ben already broke broke that down that way, I guess for Andrew then, you know, Ben’s talked about before, you know, taking a day job a few years ago and not sureing if we keep doing this grind to then do it together because you’ve known each other this long, but also to see where he’s kind of fought through and your own fight just kind of I guess could you take me through that feeling of doing this together with two guys who had to really fight to get here? We we’ve done a lot of work together at home. We’ve seen each other work. Um we’ve seen the time and effort that each other have put in. I think it really is full circle that now we win together. Um it seems like a movie really like it seems like a movie script like it’s it’s not real but I mean it’s just perfect how it all came together. Um, yeah, Ben was, you know, he was on cornfairy when I was on PJ tour at first, but we’d still be at home. He’d be putting in the work. Like, I kind of knew he was going to bounce back, you know, once once he had his little sbatical. Like, when he came back, like the mindset was there, the focus was there. Like, I like that kind of like locked you in almost like got your priorities like back in order, I guess. And I mean, since then, I mean, that you didn’t last very long on the corn trade tour. You’re right out here where you belong. So, all right. Any other questions? All right, guys. Well, PJ tour winners at last, Ben, Andrew, congratulations, guys. Welld deserved. Appreciate that. Thank you. [Applause]