Early on at the Memorial golf tournament, Ben Griffin holds the lead, with PGA players like Nick Taylor, Scottie Scheffler and Justin Rose in the hunt.
During press conference, the golfers discussed the PGA tournament being held in Dublin, Ohio.
Yeah, it was a great round. It was uh the iron game was very very sharp. Putting made a nice bunch of nice five six footers in that back line for par and um for me at this place I need to be in the fairway. That’s everybody. But um if I’m in the rough, it’s pretty much a chop out and try to get up and down with a wedge or something. So uh keeping the fairway has been key. Did you when you were uh did you putt on 15 and 16? Yes. So you puted for birdie on every hole but 10 pretty much. Yeah. How how special is that? That’s sort of Yeah, that’s pretty good. I uh not that I was necessarily keeping track of it, but it was nice to Yeah. to not have to be But the nice thing was for the most of the day, my speed was very good. So, it was a lot of tap pars if I wasn’t making birdie and that’s that’s huge out here to to kind of relieve some of that extra energy if you’re having three four footers all day in these tricky greens. So, yeah, it was a clean card, which um not necessarily that I expected, but it was nice to kind of keep it as simple as possible. Yeah, solid day. Um, you know, if I hold a few more putts, probably would have been a little bit of a different score, but you know, I felt like I was hitting hitting my lines out there and did a good job of um hit a lot more fairways today, definitely felt um felt better with my ball striking. So, overall, you know, 200 in those conditions was definitely definitely not a bad score today. You talked yesterday about being proud of posting a good score. Um, you feel like you you hit the ball better than you posted today. Yeah, I mean I had some good looks on the front nine that I didn’t hold, but on the back I I rolled it really nice and um yeah, outside of, you know, just really, you know, I think it was one under through 10 after a sloppy double on on 10 and I played played pretty good from there to the house to to get in at 200. Would you prefer here a sixiron from the fairway or a wedge from the rock? Yeah, I kind of mentioned it earlier. I’d say like uh I think you still take the wedge but you’re thinking about what the the wedge is going to do a lot more than you’re thinking about what a 78 maybe and six iron’s doing on these greens cuz 876 are going to land on the green and finish within you know a few feet of wherever it pitched. Um a sand wedge could land and you could be 45 ft from where it pitched. Uh you know you hit a slope and you have backspin. So there’s just um I think you always want to be close to the hole. I think the stats would say that. But on a day like today, um, you know, to a back pen, you’d almost rather have, uh, a little bit more and and be able to kind of one hop stop something. Um, so it was tough. Um, you know, looking at second shots into 14, for instance. I mean, that pen is in a very tight little window and, uh, you’re going to see guys all day either end up just long with that pen or or spin it back off into the rough. Um, fortunately, the rough there is just long enough to keep it out of the water, but very difficult pens on a lot of those holes where you have wedges. in terms of just the run you’ve been on in terms of the fun you’re having. How does this compare in terms just this last month in terms of the most fun you’ve had like playing golf in your life? Yeah, I mean I don’t think it can get any any better. Um and basically someone said I’m the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour. Um I mean I feel like I’m playing right now with a ton of confidence. I’m um hitting it kind of more or less where I’m looking with a lot of my clubs. So, it’s just uh it’s really fun to go on these, you know, golf’s cyclical, but it’s fun to be on these highs and I’m just going to try to stay on on the high as long as possible. Do you feel any different than maybe before the win is or or maybe even earlier this year? Totally. Um I always said um once I got my first win, it would free me up a ton. Um and you know, it’s my mindset’s never changed from before I I’ve won to now. But I’d say I just feel so much more confident in myself and my ability that I’ve gotten it done. I can I can weigh back on some of those moments. Um going back to the Schwab, going back to the Zurich with the injury where um you know, I hit some really quality shots down the stretch um and was able to get it done. And so once you kind of do that a couple times, it frees you up to kind of continue to do it. You know, you can and you just got to keep the pedal down. And so, yeah, beforehand I was playing pretty solid golf, but I’d say, you know, even from my physical game and um and bodywise, I I just feel like I’m at a really really in a really good place um to to be an elite golfer. Ben, along those lines, you know, being in the last groups and and playing with a lot of people around, having those wins, do you feel like your routine has changed at all a little bit in these last couple of months? No, routine’s very similar. Um, you know, it’s I’m just playing with new golfers now. Um, the way the tea times work on the PGA Tour, you kind of have feature groups, you have categories where you’re in a winners category. And so someone like me, I I was never, unless I got lucky and got paired with them on the weekends, I was never playing with, you know, the Scotty Sheffer, Rory Mroy, some of these top players. And now I’m just playing with different golfers. Um, you know, going back to before Zurich, I’m just playing with guys that are haven’t won on tour. And you kind of don’t, you almost feel like there’s two separate tours out there in a way on the first couple rounds because I’m always playing with the same kind of guys. I was always playing with Charlie Hoffman. I was always playing with uh Bohos or some of those guys. And it’s funny, we joked about it like everyone in kind of our same category would would play a couple times a year and you go on stretches where you play with the same guy, you know, three times in a 10 week stretch or something like that and it just kind of happened. But now I’m obviously going to be playing with uh some new faces, um guys that I’m quarter roll with, you know, in the locker room and everything, but I’ve never really played rounds with. So, um it’s it’s fun. Uh it’s new experience and um but from a golf standpoint, everything’s the same. It was more about the the timing, you know, playing later and and adjusting your schedule when you’re traveling and doing things during the mornings and yeah, I mean, you know, my first year on tour, I’m in the corner category, so I’m at the back end of of the wave, so you’re kind of battling sunsets uh early in the year. Um the greens aren’t quite as good because everyone stepped on them. Um and then my second year, I was kind of in a category where I was playing more early. Um so I’d wake up at 4:00 a.m. a lot. Say now I’m going to be waking up at a little bit better hour. Um whether or not it’s an advantage, it’s probably slight slight advantage. I think that’s why they kind of do it. Um because they want the the best golfers in the world to to have the best conditions, I guess, in a way. I mean, it’s it’s relatively fair. Um it’s as fair as it can possibly get. And the the way the tour set up, it rewards good play. And um you know, I think all of us as golfers, we’re just trying to play as well as possible. And um there’s a lot of a lot of you know, the pot of gold’s pretty big at the end of the rainbow. if you can keep keep the pedal down, get the sweep in a little bit too. Have you learned anything from, like you said, from playing with different golfers, some more elite golfers, you know, as you kind of come along here the last month or so? Um, I wouldn’t say necessarily like learned anything. But when you’re playing rounds with really, you know, elite golfers to the best golfers in the world, you’re seeing a lot of really high quality shots. So, it helps a ton when you’re you’re out there and you’re seeing guys make birdies and seeing guys hit good shots. It it kind of helps the energy of the group. Um, that’s kind of one of those things you can’t look at stats and see. Um, but when you’re in a group, you can feel feel when energy the energy is better. Like going back to the front line with Shane yesterday, we were kind of feeding off of each other. Um, that’s really fun. And sometimes it’s not like I was playing with necessarily wor that worse of golfers. I mean, everyone on the PJ tour is really, really good. But there might have been some days where I was paired with some guys that just, you know, hardly made any birdies. maybe they’re past champions or whatever it is and they’re kind of at the back ends of their career and they’re just not at they don’t hit it quite as far as some of the top golfers in the world um etc. Um so I mean the energy in the groups have definitely been been nice the last few weeks. I mean actually to be honest with you I I thought I hit in the hazard on number two you know just ran out of fairway looked like it disappeared. Um ended up finding the ball being able to make par. So yeah walking off the second hole six over actually seven over cuz I’ve already won. And I was like, “Oh yeah, this is not the momentum start I was looking for.” And then, yeah, exactly. You know, holding the shot number at number three, sort of kickstarted things, suddenly I was in the red for the day. Um, plugging away. I knew the course was super tough. I knew I probably didn’t need to do, you know, go super low to make the cut today, which was primary objective was to make the cut, but um, yeah, things really started flowing. I actually felt like I didn’t play that well today. It didn’t really hit my irions all that well. Um, but I did everything today that I haven’t been able to do the last few rounds. I just haven’t been able to score. You know, the PJ championship was super disappointing with a short game. Had no momentum every time I missed a green, wasn’t able to up and down, wasn’t taking advantage of the par fives, those sorts of things. And today it was just the opposite. You know, I kind of hung in there with some good chips, some good short game at the right time, made some good putts to keep momentum going. And that’s that’s exactly what you need. So, um yeah, of course, I mean, there’s no letup really. If you do hit a poor shot, you you’re you’re severely out of position today. So uh delighted to have kind of got myself back into the not just make the cup but back into the golf tournament. Is there any masters hangover for you at all? Um not consciously. Um great you know quite possibly I think you know definitely there there is stuff to process there for sure and I think obviously a lot of people want to keep talking to you about it. It’s hard to put it 100% behind you all the time. But, uh, I think I probably, you know, I had two weeks off after, uh, Hilton Head and felt like I did a little bit of work, but not a ton of work. And I felt like there was a little bit of slip slippage in that period of time. Yeah. So, um, you know, definitely felt like it took a week, well, it’s probably taking me a little bit of time just to to really kind of find that um, yeah, that form again, I suppose. Um, you know, I think traveling back and forth from England, I I’m, you know, this year I’ve definitely tried to change the way I’m approaching my weeks off at home. But, um, I do kind of feel like it’s my weeks off that are the problem, not the playing, you know. Um, so yeah, it’s definitely a balance. What happened to Truist? You had the withdrawal. Were you sick or did you heard something? Yeah. No, I was just sick there. Kind of just, you know, the man flu. I sniffle. Um, but yeah, I wasn’t feeling great. Um I was already seven over par and I was conscious that the PJ was coming up the following week. I was just yeah I was just you know like food basically just achy and not feeling great. So um yeah that but I think that knocked me a little bit. Yeah PJ just was not was not out the gates and then obviously I felt like yesterday I was too under parath through eight holes and I felt like okay you know really prepared well this week and coming into this week. So yesterday was a real kick in the in the ghoulies. Um, sorry. Good. Um, you the backline yesterday. Yeah, the finish I had yesterday was kind of tough tough, but uh, yeah, great to rebound today and and see some red numbers. How do you spell bullies? I got two. Google it. Hey, Justin, is it hard for you to comprehend that you’re still coming here to this venue 15 years after winning your first PJ tour at this place? Yeah, I mean, listen, I felt like it took me a long time to win my first PJ tournament tour event. Uh, you know, I’ve been on tour over here since 03. So, it definitely took me quite quite a bit of time to break through on this tour. So, there were seven years before breaking through and now 15 years since. So, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s quite amazing when I think about it like that. Um, but yeah, 15 years. I mean, you know, the image I have is my little son Leo was kind of messing around in a bunker behind 18. I mean, now you lose him in these bunkers, but back then you can still see him in the bunkers. Um, how much pride do you take in that just playing that long and being, you know, at the top? Yeah, I think I’m getting to that stage in my career where that is the goal now, you know, sort of having pride of performance and trying to buck the trend of what, you know, is a natural kind of aging process. It does there are things that are more difficult or get more difficult, but yeah, you don’t want to kind of believe it. And I still think my good is good, which is what I’ve seen this year. It’s been inconsistent this year. Um, but my good is good, and that’s the most important thing to see. I’d rather that than top 20th every week. Um, just to know that if I do put things together, I’m capable of winning, you know. And I think that’s that still I still believe that longevity is is underrated. Um, frankly, consistency who who inspires you longer doesn’t count. Yeah. Yeah. He’s he’s crazy for sure. I think uh, you know, Steve Stricker, I think, is a really nice example. I think he won see like nine time maybe nine times in his 40s and I think he did it you know living in the Midwest you locking things up for winter having a great family didn’t sacrifice the world in order to do it you know he’s a really good I think uh role model from that point of view so you know if you could have a career like his in his 40s I think that’s what I would say is doable but aspirational um and maybe not a name you’d probably think that would come to mind first and foremost uh you know there’s a lot of if you choose to kind of go all in there’s other things in your life that suffer, right? So, it just depends on on the balance of that. But, um, you know, in other sports obviously, yeah, I mean, Jovovich clearly is sort of the one pushing greatness for in a sport where you do wear out pretty quick. What about Scotty not missing a major in almost 25 years? Yeah. Listen, I mean, Adam’s a huge benchmark for me and I think I am for him. You know, we’re both within couple weeks of each other in terms of age. If you look at our careers, they’re remarkably similar in terms of top 10’s cuts made. he’s got a couple more wins but majors this that the other FedEx Cup you know like world number one very kind of quite interestingly comparable and you know good friends as well but um there’s things that he does really well that I’m like I need to push myself to still be competitive that way and I’m sure he looks at my game and think there’s things that he needs to do to to sort of compete with me. So yeah, he’s a you know, Sergio as well. We’re sort of all like around 1980. I think Sergio still plays good golf, you know. Um obviously not seeing as much of him anymore to really kind of go headto-head, but yeah. Um I think we’re the three players that have kind of kept the form, you know, in terms of just being out on tour and competing and popping our names up on the leaderboard once in a while. We’re probably the the guys doing doing well there. In what ways are you maybe better now than you were in your 20s? Um, I mean, it’s just a good question. Um, I’d say generally I’ve puted the ball better in the last five or six years than I did throughout my 20s and 30s. You know, I was an elite ball striker, I think, for a long long long time. And, uh, if I puted it as I did now back then, I would have probably done a lot of damage. But, um, that’s been an element of my game I’ve had to figure out. And like anything, ball striking hasn’t quite been as as good. But, you know, you it’s nice to know that I have access to it all. This is finding putting all together on the right
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