“Risk wasn’t worth the reward”: Ben Griffin reveals why he avoided the driver at the Wyndham Championship

Two-time PGA Tour winner Ben Griffin is chasing his third title at the 2025 Wyndham Championship. During his first round, he deployed an unusual strategy and decided not to use a driver.

After his round, the North Carolina native was asked to explain why he kept his driver away. He explained that his decision was mostly due to the challenging high wind conditions.

“The wind was really challenging out there. It was swirling a lot. It was supposed to be from the southwest, and it felt like it was a new direction every two or three holes,” Griffin said. “Because of that, I knew the driver on a lot of these holes would kind of get above the tree line. And it's obviously a tighter golf course. It's more of a positional, precision golf course. I felt like the risk wasn't worth the reward on a lot of the par fours hitting it off the tee,” he added.

Ben Griffin revealed that he normally uses five to seven drivers in a round. Looking at the results from his first round at Sedgefield Country Club, he said that avoiding the driver “wasn’t too bad of a strategy.” However, he noted that he needs to be “a little bit more aggressive” in his game.

The 29-year-old golfer hit nine out of 14 fairways in the round. He shot one bogey across 18 holes at Sedgefield Country Club and is currently tied for 38th on the provisional leaderboard.

This season has been good to Ben Griffin, who won his maiden PGA Tour title at the 2025 Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Andrew Novak in April. The following month, he snagged another victory at the Charles Schwab Challenge, marking his second tour title.

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Ben Griffin’s scorecard from his first round at the 2025 Wyndham Championship

Ben Griffin fired three birdies on the front nine and one on the back nine. With a 3-under 67, he is six strokes behind Joel Dahmen, who has taken an early lead.

Here’s a look at Griffin’s scorecard from the 2025 Wyndham Championship, Round 1:

Round 1

• Hole 1 (par 4) - 3
• Hole 2 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 3 (par 3) - 3
• Hole 4 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 5 (par 5) - 5
• Hole 6 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 7 (par 3) - 3
• Hole 8 (par 4) - 3
• Hole 9 (par 4) - 3
• Hole 10 (par 4) -3
• Hole 11 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 12 (par 3) - 3
• Hole 13 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 14 (par 4) - 4
• Hole 15 (par 5) - 5
• Hole 16 (par 3) - 3
• Hole 17 (par 4) - 5
• Hole 18 (par 4) - 4

Edited by Samya Majumdar