Ben Griffin

A tie for 14th at March’s Arnold Palmer Invitational eventually led to Griffin being called into the Royal Liverpool line-up.

Three places were on offer there as part of The Open Qualifying Series, but of the top 20 finishers 13 were already exempt and when winner Kurt Kitayama, joint runner-up Harris English, Jason Day and Keegan Bradley joined them as members of the world’s top 50 at the end of May, the 27-year-old from North Carolina took the final spot by virtue of the fact that he was higher up the rankings than Pierceson Coody, who had also finished the event on four under par.

At the start of last year his ranking stood at 1,744th and during the previous spring and summer he stepped away from golf and worked as a loan officer for a mortgage company.

Then, however, came back-to-back runner-up finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour in February and when another followed that June he had broken into the top 250.

After stepping up to the main circuit he was joint third at October’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship and early this year he made it into the leading 100. And now comes his Open debut.