Why top pro turned down Tiger Woods invite for wedding: ‘Bummer’

Few pros have had experienced life-changing years like Ben Griffin in 2025. Griffin, who was working in an office as recently as 2021, went from clinging to his PGA Tour card to a Player of the Year candidate. Then, to cap it off, he got married.

Typically, pro golfers carefully schedule their nuptials around their busy professional careers, ensuring they won’t miss any big events. But Griffin’s wedding ended up in a major schedule conflict with the Hero World Challenge, the exclusive, invite-only tournament hosted by none other than Tiger Woods.

As a result, Griffin had to turn Tiger down.

However, Griffin’s decision to hold his wedding on the weekend of Tiger’s tourney was not a power move by the 29-year-old American star. The opposite is closer to the truth: Griffin didn’t think he had a chance of getting invited to the Hero.

The reason Griffin’s wedding conflicted with Tiger Woods’ event

Griffin wed Dana Myeroff this past Saturday at The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach in front of 125 guests. According to People Magazine, the festivities featured a “refined tropical luxury” theme.

That date, December 6, also hosted the third round of the 2025 Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. While the Hero is a limited-field, unofficial PGA Tour event, only the best players and biggest stars get an invite. And the invite comes directly from Tiger himself.

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While the Hero is no Masters, it’s still an invite that’s difficult for any golfer (not named Rory McIlroy) to reject.

But ahead of the wedding, Griffin talked to Front Office Sports and explained the true source to his scheduling conflict.

When he and his wife were planning their wedding, December’s Hero World Challenge wasn’t even on his radar. At the time, he had zero PGA Tour wins and was coming off a season where he finished 61st in the Fedex Cup standings.

Rather than envisioning his three-win season that earned him a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, Griffin was more worried about securing his Tour card for 2026.

That’s why, as he told Front Office Sports, the December tournament he was most concerned with scheduling his wedding around was the Final Stage of Q-School.

“If I have a bad year, I’m gonna have to go to Q-School,” Griffin said.

After the wedding date was set in stone, Griffin went out and won the Zurich Classic, Charles Schwab Challenge and World Wide Technology Championship (played at the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal), and added two runner-up finishes to move into the Top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

His exemplary play and appearance in the Ryder Cup earned him that hard-won invite from Woods. But because he hadn’t predicted his meteoric rise, he was forced to turn it down.

“It’s a bummer to not be able to play in the Hero,” Griffin told Front Office Sports. “But I’m honestly so excited.”

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