Wildcat Men's Golf 2012: My Site News: Griffin commits to UNC

 

BY TIM STEVENS  

East Chapel Hill sophomore Ben Griffin was about 13 years old when he challenged a group of then-current and former University of North Carolina golfers. He had asked to join the threesome for a round and one replied that they were going to be playing from the back tees.

Griffin said he'd play from the back tees, too, and beat them.

He didn't quite do it. He had a better round than two of the three, but finished two strokes behind Jack Fields, North Carolina's best player at the time and the Carolinas Golf Association Amateur Champion.

"I know that they thought it was going to be a terrible round, that they'd be spending a lot of time looking for my ball in the woods," Griffin said. "But I guess that was the day that I started believing I could be a good college golfer."

Griffin won the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4A golf championship last year as a freshman and currently is the top ranked junior golfer in the Carolinas Golf Association.

Last week, after investigating college scholarship possibilities throughout the country, he made a verbal commitment to North Carolina. He is 15 years old and has three years of high school golf ahead of him, but after considering national powers Georgia, Georgia Tech and Florida, he chose the hometown Tar Heels.

He was very impressed with new UNC coach Andrew Sapp.

"Carolina has everything I was looking for," Griffin said. "I think UNC has a good chance to win a championship."

The decision is not binding on the school or Griffin, but he doesn't anticipate any wavering. The purpose in making the early decision, said Cowan Griffin, his father, was to remove the distractions of going through the recruiting process.

"Usually college coaches are interested in your junior season and the summer before your senior year in high school," Cowan Griffin said. "But we took a proactive approach and approached the college coaches."

Cowan Griffin said today's best young players are amazingly good.

"In the last 10 years, kids are hitting it longer and playing better," he said. "Kids are getting better instruction, have better equipment and are playing in a better environment."

He noted that Rory McIlroy went from high school to the European pro tour without playing college golf. McIlroy won his first European title when he was 19 and his first PGA title at 20. He won the 2011 U.S. Open.

But Ben Griffin has plenty of high school goals. He has a chance to become the first golfer to win four NCHSAA championships. Chuck Merriam of South Mecklenburg won in 1963, '64 and '65 and Green Hope's Brendon Todd won in 2000, 2002 and 2003.

"Since I won as a freshman, I'd like to win four years in a row," he said. "I'm going to work hard. It would be lovely to be a senior and to have won three championships."

And what will happen one day when a 13-year-old lad approaches Griffin and wants to play a round and predicts that he'll beat Griffin.

"Hopefully, we'll play and he'll be great," Griffin said. "I hope I can encourage some other young guy as much as those guys did me."