Not even a difficult golf course like Muirfield Village could cool down Ben Griffin’s heater. Fresh off the first individual win of his PGA Tour career last weekend at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Griffin jumped out the gates Thursday at the 2025 Memorial to command a two-stroke lead over Collin Morikawa following the first round of action.
Griffin was sensational in carding his opening 7-under 65 beating the field average by nine strokes. Making his performance all the more impressive is that it featured not one but two water balls that he was able to overcome thanks to a fast finish.
“It was an incredible day,” Griffin said. “Kind of building on what I kind of was doing last week, making a ton of birdies, staying aggressive. This is one of the toughest golf courses we play on Tour, and you’ve got to kind of be on your game to make birdies and give yourself a lot of looks. I felt like I kind of did that. …
“Mentally, I felt great, even after hitting it in the water on those holes. Still was attacking having a ton of fun with Shane [Lowry]. That was my first time playing with Shane, but I had a feeling me and his personalities would kind of match up, and we had an awesome time. Seven birdies and an eagle today? Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. I think I’m still black out, so keep it going.”
Griffin found himself in a logjam at 3 under following dropped shots on Nos. 11-12 but caught fire coming home with four birdies in his final five holes. The surge saw Griffin push past not only Morikawa but also the scores of Max Homa, who birdied his last two holes to shoot 68, and Lowry, his playing partner, who came in with a round of 69.
“My game feels about as good as it has in a very, very long time, and I knew that I think that brought some peace, which was nice, not feeling like I needed to do much,” Homa said. “You get off to a good start like that, and it just kind of calms some of the nerves. Everything’s felt really good: short game’s felt good, putting’s felt great and ball striking feels really good. So, I didn’t feel uncomfortable pretty much the whole day so that was nice.”
Morikawa, Homa and Lowry not only pose as Griffin’s closet competitors heading into Friday but as three of only 13 players to break par Thursday. One of those men joining them late thanks to a flurry of back-nine birdies was the world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who began his title defense with a ho-hum 70.
While Scheffler may stand five strokes behind Griffin, he finds only six names in front of his on the leaderboard as U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley and Canadian Nick Taylor nudged past him with late birdies to each sign for 69s.
Scheffler was far from flawless in his opening refrain as he battled a case of the lefts and hit only six fairways (the second least in the field), but a professional round puts him in a position to get out onto the golf course early on Friday and move his way up the leaderboard.
“I need to give myself some more looks,” Scheffler said. “I felt like I was out of the fairway a bit too much today. I was able to hit a decent amount of greens, just giving myself a few more quality looks, I think, would be a big difference.”
The leader
1. Ben Griffin (-7): Griffin made just about everything on and around the greens Thursday, but it is a different area of the game which caught the eye. The right hander launched five drives over 325 yards, including two at 334 yards and 352 yards on the final two holes, which ultimately helped him set up birdie opportunities to secure the first-round lead.
Just a couple of years ago, Griffin hovered near 170 mph in terms of ball speed. This year, he has upped that to 176 mph — even higher in recent weeks — which has made a massive difference. With the added speed, Griffin says he has added some accuracy as well stating that he swings his best when he goes after a drive.
“There’s a lot of talk about the golf ball and the technology and how far it’s going,” Griffin said. “And whether or not you like it or not, for me, I have to take advantage of the opportunity to hit it really far. And the last three, four months, I really kind of locked in on that, trying to gain speed — trying to still maintain flexibility and mobility. I mean, it’s important. I’m on the road every week, I’m flying, I’m driving cars, none of it is good for my body.
“But doing a lot of maintenance, building strength, my kind of goal has been to swing harder, get, like, a mile-per-hour faster or so every week or two. And I’ve just been on this nice trajectory right now. I’m trying not to push it too much, but definitely conscious of trying to hit it a little bit further. And I think I swing better when I hit it harder. It’s weird, I feel like when I’m swinging hard I’m actually like hitting it kind of straighter. It’s funky. Golf’s a weird sport, but here I am. I guess I’m an athlete now.”
Other contenders
2. Collin Morikawa (-5)
3. Max Homa (-4)
T4. Shane Lowry, Keegan Bradley, Nick Taylor (-3)
T7. Scottie Scheffler, Si Woo Kim, Andrew Novak, Akshay Bhatia (-2)
T11. Harris English, Bud Cauley, Robert MacIntyre (-1)
Twice a runner up at this golf tournament and previously a winner at this golf course, Morikawa made it look easy in Round 1. The two-time major champion was meandering through his round sitting 5 under through his opening 14 holes before exchanging a poor bogey on the par-5 16th with a stellar birdie on the par-3 16th.
With a relatively new caddie on the bag and with something missing from his game — as he put it earlier in the week — Morikawa leaned on his old swing thought en route to a 67. It produced 18 holes that saw him lead the field in strokes gained tee to green as he hit 12 of 14 fairways and gained nearly four strokes on approach.
“Honestly, I woke up today kind of not knowing how the swing was going to produce,” Morikawa said. “I spent a couple hours on the range after the pro-am yesterday and was just trying to find something. Yeah, kind of went to some old swing thoughts, and it’s hard to filter through that, but did it on the range, and kind of was just able to go play golf. I got to trust myself that I’m playing good enough golf to go out there and win and that’s what I did today.”
Struggling stars
Unlike most of the signature events, the Memorial Tournament will feature a cut at the halfway point. With the field getting trimmed to the top 50 players and ties as well as those within 10 strokes of the leader, a number of big names are on the outside looking in.
Chief among them are two-time major champion Justin Thomas, who entered the week fresh off an early exit at the PGA Championship. Thomas failed to break 80 on Thursday — as did Daniel Berger — and appears certain to miss his second straight cut. Other notables who will endure an uphill battle on Friday include Adam Scott, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose, Sam Burns and Min Woo Lee, who all shot 4 over or worse.
2025 Memorial Tournament updated odds, picks
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook
- Scottie Scheffler: 5/2
- Collin Morikawa: 4-1
- Ben Griffin: 5-1
- Shane Lowry: 16-1
- Max Homa: 16-1
- Keegan Bradley: 18-1
- Si Woo Kim: 22-1
Scheffler takes this tournament home despite a pretty average performance (for his standards) Thursday. He holds a number similar to that of the pre-tournament price, which is something that can be stomached. However, if you are hoping for something longer at this stage of the event, look no further than Bradley. He led the field in greens in regulation and still has room to improve as his driver was far from its best.