Ben Griffin’s turnaround on Sunday at the BMW Championship is more impressive than it seems.
The 29-year-old started the day with a triple bogey. Then he hit his tee shot on the second way out of bounds en route to a double bogey. And a bogey ensued.
For those keeping score, that’s 6 over in three holes.
However, he made three straight birdies on Nos. 7, 8 and 9 and had another four birdies on the back, signing for a final-round 1 under 69, moving to T12 and four spots better than where he entered the final round on the leaderboard.
So what the heck happened on the first few holes?
“It’s kind of an interesting story,” Griffin said. “So I take creatine as a supplement, and this among I didn’t take it until I basically tee’d off on [the first hole]. I was at the end of my batch. I had basically a snowball of creatine, so had been in my bucket for a month, and broke it up and put in any water bottle. I’m all good. I’ve taken it on the golf course before. It’s fine. I started taking it after my second shot and I accidentally swallowed one of the big rocks in my water bottle.
“I’ve never overdosed on creatine before, but I think I did in the moment because I didn’t really drink any water after that. I basically just inhaled a snowball. So I started getting super shaky. I’ve never felt like that before and I felt like I had tremors. I four-putted [No.] 1 and on [No.] 2, I like was freaking out and didn’t know what to do. Like, I hit it so far out of bounds.”
Griffin eventually found a remedy, though.
“Luckily, my caddie stepped in and made me chug a whole water and I tried to calm down a little bit,” the two-time Tour winner said. “I hit the other one in play, and then I was fine. I ended up making, whatever, a double on that hole and bogeyed the next hole. It was probably more just a little bit flustered. I was fine after the second shot on two. And then it was—I felt good, so I went about my day and got it back to under par.
“But, yeah, pretty crazy story. I don’t think I’ll be taking too much creatine in the future. I will take it, but not in the amount that I probably did on the golf course, which wasn’t probably a healthy amount.”
After the episode, Griffin made a goal for the rest of the round, which he achieved.
“I’m very proud of the way I bounced back,” the world No. 17 said. “I told Alex [Griffin’s caddie] on [No.] 4, 5, I’m going to get back to even par and got back to under par. Pretty cool. Pretty proud of myself. Excited to go to the Tour Championship.”
It’s a safe bet Griffin won’t be consuming any creatine snowballs at East Lake—or anywhere, ever again.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as After Overdosing in the BMW Championship Final Round, Ben Griffin Has Big Turnaround .
