HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW CONVERSATION WITH BEN SILVERMAN:
The Strategy of Playing For Love of the Game:
“This week is a good week to kind of start back on the right mental train of having fun, going back to the roots of why I wanted to play this game, because I just loved it and fell in love with it. And that the important thing, in the end, is not the result of every shot. It's how much I am determined to hit a specific shot or choose a ball flight, choose a path on how this putt's going to roll and hit it there. And after I do that, nothing else matters.”
**Watch Ben Silverman making birdie and eagle at the 2025 Waste Management Phoenix Open.
One Shot At a Time — In Golf and In Life:
“So you can actually get in your own way and mess yourself up if you're trying harder to win or trying to do something more than you would normally do. So that's where just reminding myself of that over this past week has been like relieving like, oh, okay, I don't need to care extra. I already care. Let me just go back to focusing on hitting each shot the way I do the same way I would on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And that's the way I'm going to play the tournament. It's funny.”
Blocking Out Distractions — Employing the “Earl Woods Method” In Practice:
“The ninth hole is a long par five here, but a pretty wide open fairway. And I had in my head this tree I’d picked out in the distance that I wanted to hit this tight little draw off of. And I was going to swing as hard as I could to smash this one. And there's a whole bunch of people surrounding that tee box. And I had just signed a bunch of autographs for kids walking around the eighth green. But I know (my caddy) is going to do something because he's already distracted me a bunch throughout the round today and I know something's coming on this last tee shot. So my goal is to focus on the shot I want to hit and that's it. I don't care what he does. It's not going to matter. And I take the club back and on mid-backswing, I hear it. He drops a golf ball on the tee marker that's hollow and it makes this big ‘doink’ sound — like something bouncing off of something metal. And I just striped my shot right where I wanted, right down the middle, and everybody around kind of laughed, like, ‘what did he just do?’”
The ‘Bagger Vance’ Attitude:
I think the best way to constantly remind yourself to think about it is that it's a game and it should be treated no matter what stage you're on the same way you would play a pickup game on the street or a game with some buddies that you’d want to win just as bad. Just because there's 50,000 people watching you in a stadium doesn't mean you need to do anything different or try harder. Now that there's money on the line, you know, you should be giving it the same effort you would if it was just you and a buddy when nobody’s around.”
“Ben Silverman: Underdog of the Century” is a ‘HIDDEN LESSONS' series presented by TGM throughout the 2025 PGA Tour season.
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