PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — If you ask Ben Griffin, scaling PGA Tour leaderboards beats weighing some rising interest rates.
“They’re too high if you’re trying to buy a house,” the former loan officer said after going low for the second day at TPC Sawgrass.
Griffin’s decision to give up his day job for his dream looks wiser by the day.
In the mix after 36 holes of his first Players Championship, Griffin became a mortgage-loan officer a little more than two years ago after he lost his playing status.
“I thought I was done,” he said.
Griffin hopes he’s just getting started at TPC Sawgrass.
At 6-under par, he was the clubhouse leader and 2 shots behind South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Canada’s Adam Svensson, who each had holes remaining when bad weather suspended play at 4:27 p.m. Friday. Collin Morikawa and Min Woo Lee also were on the course at 6-under.
Griffin realizes much golf remains during two days on a daunting course with winds forecast for 15-to-20 mph. The 26-year-old also recognizes his good fortune.
Even after a double-bogey 6 on the 18th hole undercut Friday’s steady round, Griffin was all smiles after he signed for a 1-under-par 71 a day after he carded 67.
“To be bogey-free through 17 holes I thought was pretty freaking good,” he exclaimed. “It was a grind, and unfortunately I didn’t finish the way I wanted to, but the 18th hole is probably the toughest hole all day. I’m not going to be the first guy to make a double there.”
Griffin was not.
Griffin likely is the only golfer in the field who gave up the game to help couples purchase their dream homes. A 2018 graduate of North Carolina, Griffin went to work for a Chapel Hill company after he lost his playing status following the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour season and failed to emerge from Q-school.
The bills were piling up and Griffin’s confidence was at an ebb.
“You have a lot of credit-card debt and you’re trying to figure out how to make ends meet,” he said.
The support of his parents helped. No one but Griffin would be able to figure out his golf future.
During his roughly six-month stint in the residential mortgage industry, Griffin Monday-qualified for a Korn Ferry Tour event in Missouri. As his form returned, Griffin received the financial backing to give him a second chance.
Griffin now dons the logo for Lord Abbett, an investment group headed by Doug Sieg, and credits the company for removing the biggest worry facing all fledgling pros.
“He offered to pay all of my expenses for two years to play professional golf,” Griffin said of Sieg. “When you’re starting up, that is a humongous sigh of relief and huge for your confidence and everything because you don’t have to think about anything but winning.
“Before I’m thinking: ‘All right, how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to pay for my food?’ It’s stuff like that that’s real.”
Griffin is living a fantasy at TPC Sawgrass and is two rounds from becoming the first golfer since Craig Perks in 2004 to win his first Players. In 2010, Tim Clark also made the Players his first win on Tour.
To become the prestigious tournament’s next surprise winner, Griffin will have to stay grounded. He led by 2 shots with seven holes to play in Oct. 30 in Bermuda but was 6-over par from there and fell short.
“I didn’t finish it off, and short-sided myself a few too many times there on the back nine and left myself a lot of shots that were downwind with not a lot of green to work with,” he explained. “I just need to be a little bit better with my misses — because I am going to miss shots — where you can get up-and-down and save the par and make birdies when I can.”
Missed shots are a given for everyone who reaches the weekend.
Designer Pete Dye’s famed course played 2 strokes over par Friday and is unlikely to let up. The conditions and course led to many rounds exceeding 5 hours and had pushed Thursday’s first round into Friday.
Seven golfers who completed 36 holes at 2-over par will have to wait to see whether the cutline moves from 1-over when second-round play is completed. Those who did not finish Friday will tee off beginning at 7 a.m. Saturday. Groups of three will be sent off both Nos. 1 and 10 during the third round.
The Tour’s showcase event will be without world No. 1 Jon Rahm, who withdrew before the second round citing a stomach illness, and world No. 3 Rory McIlroy barring a serious rally. Fresh off a second-place tie at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, McIlroy — the 2019 TPC champion — is 6-over with eight holes to play and 5 shots above the projected cut line.
With so much going on Saturday, Griffin could be easy to overlook. But whatever happens, he’s really just happy to be here.
“Taking a break has provided me with an awesome perspective,” he said. “I’m just very grateful to be playing.”
