Lanto Griffin played “pissed off” this week.
On Wednesday, after his second-consecutive down year on the PGA Tour, he was told he wouldn’t have any status on the Korn Ferry Tour, but by Sunday none of it mattered.
Griffin fired a final-round seven-under 63 on Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass at PGA Tour Q-School to earn medalist honors and his PGA Tour card for the 2025 season. Five other golfers will join him as six golfers finished the week at four under or better with the top five players and ties earning PGA Tour membership.
It’s Griffin’s first win worldwide since his rookie season on the PGA Tour, when he triumphed at the 2019 Houston Open, but his game had fallen off in the years since.
After a solid run of sustained success where he finished inside the top 100 of the FedEx Cup points list three years in a row before a back injury knocked him out of action in the summer of 2022.
His comeback in 2023 and 2024 resulted in just one top-10, and lost him full-time status on the PGA Tour, but that wasn’t what pissed him off this week at Q-School.
Griffin played out of the past champion category this past season and earned 22 starts, but still finished 158th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings, a ways off the top 125 mark needed to keep his card for 2025.
Then on Wednesday, he learned he wouldn’t have any guaranteed starts on the Korn Ferry Tour next season if he wanted to re-earn his card that way.
“That email Wednesday night that I wasn’t going to even have guaranteed Korn Ferry Tour starts, that was— it kind of pissed me off, ticks me off,” he said Sunday. “So that was a little chip on— you know, me and my mental coach have been talking about playing with a chip on your shoulder, being an athlete. Doesn’t really matter what it looks like. Yeah, that was the goal coming out here this week and compete as hard as I can.”
On Sunday night, as he spoke to members of the media, the mission was accomplished.
After three rounds at Sawgrass Country Club and Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass, Griffin went off Sunday, starting the day in eighth place and rocketing up the leaderboard to finish three shots ahead of anyone else.
“I guess when your back’s against the wall you kind of just have to— you don’t have a choice,” he said, “Obviously it could have gone a different route this week for me, but my focus was good.
“Today was huge for my confidence. I have a lot of confidence in my game, but I haven’t won since back surgery. Today on the back nine your mind’s racing a million miles an hour. You can make three bogeys and still get in, it’s like I haven’t won a tournament since ’19, it’s been five years.