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Ben Griffin rallies in Cabo for third win of 2025

football10 November 2025 03:17| © Reuters
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Ben Griffin put an exclamation point on his breakout season by shooting a final-round, 9-under-par 63 to secure his third win of 2025 at the World Wide Technology Championship on Sunday in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Griffin was consistent all week but started the day two shots back of South Africa's Garrick Higgo. Griffin rolled in five birdies in a row at Nos. 8-12 to overtake Higgo and Carson Young for the lead at 27 under par.

He added two birdies coming home and finished with 10 birdies and a single bogey on his card in order to reach 29-under-par 259 at El Cardonal Golf Course. That was enough for a two-shot win over Sami Valimaki of Finland (64 Sunday) and Chad Ramey (65).

Higgo shot a 68 and faded to a T4 finish alongside Trevor Cone (66).

"To start out the round I wasn't really paying too much attention" to the leaderboard, Griffin said. "There's a lot of gettable holes, felt like there were a lot of birdies to be made. So I just kind of kept my head down and just tried to play aggressive, play smart, not attack the pins that were a little closer to the edges or whatnot, go at a lot of the pins that were a little more receptive.

"Yeah, and coming down the stretch I kind of got to a point where I was I think 27 under and with three holes to go my goal was to birdie ‘em all and get to 30, and I had felt like that would seal the deal."

Griffin, 29, won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (with teammate Andrew Novak) and the Charles Schwab Challenge in the spring. He vaulted into the top 15 in the world rankings, qualified for the Tour Championship for the first time and was a captain's pick for the US Ryder Cup team.

Par-3 holes were instrumental to Griffin's comeback. He birdied all four par-3s, sticking his tee shot to 2 feet of the pin at No 9 and getting a long, left-to-right bender to drop at No 11.

"My dad always calls me Mr. Par 3, so shout out, Dad," Griffin said. "No, I mean, I got off to a great start honestly making some birdies. ... But after making a few birdies early, I kind of pushed myself a little bit harder than the past few weeks when I was in contention to kind of keep the pedal down."

Griffin has several reasons why 2025 will be a memorable year. Away from the course, his wedding to partner Dana Myeroff is on the horizon.

"It's so great to have her out here, it means the world," he said. "So excited to marry her in four weeks, getting closer. Crazy, three wins and getting married in the same year, hard to beat."

Ramey and Valimaki were outside the top 100 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings entering this tournament, and the top 100 players at the end of the fall secure full PGA Tour status for next season. Ramey vaulted from No 123 to No 89 and Valimaki from No 103 to No 76 with two tournaments to go.

"At the end of the year that's the goal, keep your PGA Tour card," Ramey said. "You know, Ben's top-50, he didn't have to worry about it, but the rest of us out here, that's on the top of our goals."

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