The PGA Tour finished play in Texas for the season on Sunday and did so at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Forth Worth. Ben Griffin is the lone golfer who stood on top when it was all said and done.
Griffin has won before this season and in general on Tour, but Sunday in Fort Worth marked his first solo victory as he and Andrew Novak won the Zurich Classic together in New Orleans earlier this season. Good for Ben!
The Charles Schwab win is technically Griffin’s second of the season and he joined some pretty exclusive company as far as players to win multiple times this season:
Rory McIlroy
Sepp Straka
Scottie Scheffler
Speaking of Rory, he too won the Zurich last season and went on to win a solo event which means such a thing has now happened in consecutive seasons on Tour.
Those are obviously some interesting bits of history, but Griffin made a pretty unique bit of history with regards to his winning round on Sunday specifically.
You see, the first hole at Colonial Country Club is a par 5. Griffin started his Sunday round off strong and recorded an eagle on it.
PGA Tour
This is admittedly impressive and not necessarily something that everyone can do to start off their final round in a tournament that they go on to win due to different courses having different setups. But Griffin made an eagle on number 1 and went on to win.
This phenomenon had only happened 3 other times since 1983. That’s over 40 years!
K.J. Choi…………….. 2006 Valspar Championship
Phil Mickelson…….. 2009 The Genesis Invitational
Chris Kirk……………. 2015 Charles Schwab Challenge
It is funny that the last instance of a player making an eagle on the first hole in the final round of a tournament that they would go on to win happened at the Charles Schwab as well, kudos to Chris Kirk who did it 10 years ago.
We can now officially add Ben Griffin to that list. Maybe we will see it again at Colonial in another decade as well.
