- Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin won the 2025 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, their first PGA Tour victories.
- The duo finished at 28-under 260, one stroke ahead of Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard.
- A clutch birdie putt on the 17th hole secured the win for the Saint Simons Island, Georgia, residents.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
It did for good friends Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin, who joined forces to win for the first time on the PGA Tour. It was only fitting that the stars finally aligned for the two pros, winning the 2025 Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Sunday at the circuit’s lone team event.
“It seems like a movie script, like it's not real,” Novak said. “But it's just perfect how it all came together.”
The Zurich Classic is a 72-hole stroke play format featuring four-ball (best ball) during the first and third rounds and foursomes (alternate shot) during the second and fourth rounds.In what was Novak’s 100thTour start and Griffin’s 90th, they finally took care of business as Griffin sank a 35-foot birdie putt on the 72ndhole in the foursomes formatat TPC Louisiana in Avondale, Louisiana, for a final-round 1-under 71. That was the difference in edging the team of identical twin brothers Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard by one stroke with a 72-hole total of 28-under 260.
“It felt like it was only a matter of time out here. We both put ourselves in the mix a bunch, especially this season, but even going back to last season,” Griffin said. “It means the world to finally get it paid off or to finally get it done. I couldn't think of a better guy to get it done with, right here with Andrew.”
Randy Myers, director of golf fitness at Sea Island Resort, would second the notion. He is Novak’s father-in-law and coaches both he and Griffin. He watched the livestream from Lisbon, Portugal, where he was vacationing.
“How good is this one,” Myers texted. “My son-in-law and Benny get their first wins together. Proud of them both.”
It was Myers, who played a key role in getting Griffin back into professional golf after he stepped away for a desk job, suffering from burnout and mounting credit card debt. He worked first for his father and then as a mortgage loan officer for four months in 2021 after COVID struck.
Five years ago, Myers reconnected withDoug Sieg, a former college quarterback at Penn State when Myers was the team’s strength and conditioning coach, now CEO and managing partner of Lord, Abbett & Co., a global investment management company headquartered in New Jersey. Coincidentally, Griffin happened to pair up with Sieg and his daughter at Sea Island’s Plantation Course, and impressed by firing a casual 62.
“Doug goes home to New York and calls me a month later and said, ‘We signed a female golfer at Lord Abbett. We’ve got some money to spend. He doesn’t have to be on Tour but someone who can talk to my clients. What about your guy Ben?’ I told him, ‘He retired a few months ago.’ They connected and Ben at first said no. He was committed to doing what he was doing. Next thing you know, he’s going to Q-School and carried his own bag.”
“When he got on the phone and said, ‘I can’t see myself doing anything other than being a PGA Tour professional and eventually winning on the Tour,’ I literally got chills,” Sieg told PGA Tour.com in 2023. “On the day he spoke to me and said he was going to leave golf, to the day he said, ‘I can’t live without doing this and chasing the dream,’ it was two different people.”
But Griffin, 28, wouldn’t accept Sieg's offer to bankroll his next two year's as a pro unless he got through Q-School. When the third round got postponed because of weather, Griffin called Sieg, who asked him where he was staying that week. Griffin was bunking at a Motel 6. “From now on you’re not sleeping at a Motel 6 because you’ll play like a Motel 6,” Sieg said.
Myers could tell from Griffin’s work ethic and raw talent that he had what it takes to make it in professional golf. He just needed someone like Sieg to help take the pressure off. “The guys who starve and eat tuna fish out of a can, sleep three to a room, they have grit and when they get to the Tour they know what they don’t want to go back to,” Myers said.
Novak, 30, made $30,111 in his first two years as a pro, but has shown steady improvement, grinding to keep his Tour card the last few years before losing a playoff to Justin Thomas last week at the RBC Heritage.Novak’s last win? At the 2020 Lecom Suncoast Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Griffin and Novak entered the final round with a three-stroke lead but getting to the winner’s circle wouldn’t be easy. Until recently, they were both members of the Sea Island Mafia, playing together regularly the past five years as residents of Saint Simons Island, Ga., until Griffin recently relocated to Florida. They bogeyed the first hole of the final round but bounced back with a birdie at the second. When Novak rammed in a 47-foot birdie putt at the fifth to stretch the lead back to three strokes, they seemed on their way to making all their dreams come true. But they had to sit out a 93-minute weather delay due to lightning in the area and when play resumed, they made bogey at Nos. 8 and 9 as Novak's putter betrayed him. When the team of Jake Knapp and Frankie Capan III birdied the 10th, the solo lead had evaporated.
It was down to wire with three teams duking it out late on Sunday for the title. Defending champs Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry started the day five off the lead but shot even par and tied for 12th. Instead, it was the Hojgaard brothers, who rallied and trailed by a stroke, needing to make something happen at 18. It looked over when Rasmus blew his tee shot left but they got free relief and carded one final birdie to shoot 68.
Capan and Knapp shared the lead and had the honor at the 183-yard par-3 17th. They hadn’t made a bogey all day until Capan, a 25-year-old rookie, tugged his tee shot into the water and the best they could do was salvage bogey. They signed for 70 and finished third.
“Just got a little quick and kind of turned it left,” Capan said. “I think it was a common theme for me on a lot of holes today.”
Novak stepped up next and the wind blew his tee shot left of the hole, positioned just a few paces from the water's edge, barely finding land and skittering to the fringe. Novak spread his right hand across his heart as CBS’s Trevor Immelman spoke for viewers everywhere: “My heart skipped a beat.” Novak's began racing again when Griffin poured in a 35-foot birdie putt to build a two-stroke lead.Griffin pumped his fist and attempted to high-five Capan before realizing his mistake and searching for Novak to celebrate.
"The wheels were coming off and I was having some issues out of the weather delay but we kept it together and that putt on 17 was unbelievable. I'm glade we got it done," Novak said.
Despite being one of the guys who kept picking Griffin’s pocket during Sea Island practice rounds that eventually put him in a financial hole and persuaded Griffin to leave the pro game, Novak always knew he was too good not to make it on the PGA Tour. As part of his renewed commitment, Griffin gave up drinking during the golf season and became a vegan. His game blossomed and he has banked nearly $10 million.
“It kind of locked you in almost,” Novak said. “You got your priorities back in order, I guess.”
“Love his spirit and his game,” Myers wrote in a text. “Just needed some backing. Turns out my friend who runs Lord Abbett believed in him and here we are.”
In the winner's circle along with Novak. As they danced back to the 18th green for the trophy ceremony to a groovy beat provided by a local jazz band, Novak turned to his wife and said something he had waited his whole life to say: "I’m a PGA Tour winner, Maddie."
"You are, I’m so proud of you," she said.
"Oh, man," Novak said with a big sigh of relief.
"You can finally say it," Maddie said.
 during Amazon's Big Spring Sale)