Ben Griffin takes a three-shot lead over Carl Yuan into the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship, providing the 27-year-old the chance to claim his first career PGA Tour win and put the perfect bow on his unusual professional golf journey.
Griffin’s story has been fairly well-chronicled. Upon graduating from North Carolina in 2018 after earning All-American honors, he played his away on to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019 but struggled. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and mounting expense added up, and the life of an aspiring tour pro didn’t seem like all it was cracked up to be. So in spring 2021, stepped away to become a mortgage loan officer.
But later that summer, Griffin got the itch again, and with the help of some local sponsors, returned to golf, eventually earning a Korn Ferry Tour card for 2022. Solid play there, allowed him to get his PGA Tour card for 2023, and a T-3 finish at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship started giving him the confidence he was on the track he had hoped for from the beginning.
Jonathan Bachman
Cameron Champ (remember him) is back in contention at the Sanderson
At Mississippi’s C.C. of Jackson, Griffin sits at 20 under, matching the tournament’s 54-hole scoring record. While winning is the priority, a solid finish could help me potentially improve his PGA Tour status for the 2024 season. Griffin entered the week 66th in the FedEx Cup points standings. If he can finish between 51st and 60th at the end of the fall season, he’ll earn spots into two other PGA Tour signature events in the early part of the 2024 season.
Oh, and a victory at the Sanderson comes with a nice financial reward, too. The winner earns $1.476 million for his first-place price money payout. Considering Griffin’s biggest payday on the PGA Tour has been a $357,700 check at the 2022 Wyndham Championship and his career earnings in 35 starts is $2.3 million, the victory will go far in help pay back those sponsors who helped him along the way.
The overall purse in Mississippi is $8.2 million. Here’s the prize money payout for each golfer who made the cut.
Private The Country Club of Jackson: Dogwood-Azalea Jackson, MS 2.5 15 Panelists The Country Club of Jackson is a 27-hole facility in Jackson, Miss., which has hosted the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship since 2013. John Fought and Mike Gogel made some significant improvements in 2008, including updating fairway bunkering and greens at this Dick Wilson original. The facility also includes an additional nine holes, which the club calls its “family nine,” where tees range from 1,800-3,500 yards. View Course
Win: $1,476,000
2: $893,800
3: $565,800
4: $401,800
5: $336,200
6: $297,250
7: $276,750
8: $256,250
9: $239,850
10: $223,450
11: $207,050
13: $190,650
13: $174,250
14: $157,850
15: $149,650
16: $141,450
17: $133,250
18: $125,050
19: $116,850
20: $108,650
21: $100,450
22: $92,250
23: $85,690
24: $79,130
25: $72,570
26: $66,010
27: $63,550
28: $61,090
29: $58,630
30: $56,170
31: $53,710
32: $51,250
33: $48,790
34: $46,740
35: $44,690
36: $42,640
37: $40,590
38: $38,950
39: $37,310
40: $35,670
41: $34,030
42: $32,390
43: $30,750
44: $29,110
45: $27,470
46: $25,830
47: $24,190
48: $22,878
49: $21,730
50: $21,074
51: $20,582
52: $20,090
53: $19,762
54: $19,434
55: $19,270
56: $19,106
57: $18,942
58: $18,778
59: $18,614
60: $18,450
61: $18,286
62: $18,122
63: $17,958
64: $17,794
65: $17,630
66: $17,466
67: $17,302
68: $17,138
69: $16,974
70: $16,810
71: $16,646
72: $16,482
73: $16,319
74: $16,154
75: $15,990
76: $15,826
77: $15,662
78: $15,498
79: $15,334
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
