(EDITOR’S NOTE: This story features a dialogue of suicide. In the event you or somebody wants assist, the nationwide suicide and disaster lifeline within the U.S. is out there by calling or texting 988. There’s additionally a web-based chat at 988lifeline.org.)
DUBLIN, Ohio — Dozens of gamers gathered Tuesday for a solemn celebration of life for Grayson Murray, the PGA Tour winner who had turned the nook from struggles with alcoholism and despair solely to take his life a day after withdrawing from a match.
“All of us on the PGA Tour carry a heavy coronary heart and can for a very long time to return,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan mentioned, his voice cracking at instances. “Once you lose a member of the family, you possibly can by no means fairly put all of the items again collectively.”
Murray’s dad and mom, two siblings and fiancée weren’t at Memorial Park, a backyard that sits under the primary tee at Muirfield Village, its rock partitions crammed with bronze plaques of gamers who’ve been honored on the Memorial over time.
Subsequent to the rostrum was Murray’s golf bag, together with a big framed {photograph} of his response to creating a 40-foot birdie in a playoff to win the Sony Open in January.
His dad and mom mentioned he died by suicide on Could 25, at some point after he walked off the course at Colonial with two holes remaining within the second spherical of the Charles Schwab Problem.
Amongst those that spoke on the celebration was Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, who got here to know Murray higher within the early a part of the 12 months, as Murray was making an attempt to get his fiancée extra concerned with among the gamers’ wives.
They performed a nine-hole observe spherical at The Gamers Championship, Murray and Chesson Hadley in opposition to Scheffler and Sam Burns.
“The look on his face once I gave him $100 on the ninth inexperienced is one thing I’ll keep in mind for a very long time since you couldn’t wipe that smile off his face,” Scheffler mentioned. “Undoubtedly, he beloved being out right here contained in the ropes.”
Scheffler referred to him as a “candy man” on multiple event, and he was weeping when he walked away from the rostrum, then buried his head in his spouse’s shoulder.
Murray’s loss of life was a shock to gamers, caddies and everybody concerned within the tour. He was a prodigious expertise as a junior, received the Barbasol Championship in Kentucky as a rookie and struggled with alcoholism and tour self-discipline and anxiousness. He spoke on the Sony Open about feeling like a failure for not dwelling as much as expectations.
Webb Simpson, who first met an 8-year-old Murray of their house state of North Carolina, shouldn’t be on the Memorial this 12 months. He had one other shut good friend, Russell Henley, learn his ideas.
Jay Inexperienced, who started caddying for him the week of the Sony Open, advised of his hopes to purchase a Rolex watch if that they had a great 12 months. Murray received the Sony Open and purchased a Rolex.
For Monahan, Murray’s loss of life was private.
This week marks one 12 months because the PGA Tour did a secretive and surprising take care of the Saudi backers of LIV Golf, and Murray was entrance and middle at a participant assembly the afternoon of June 6 to hammer Monahan for doing the deal and never telling anybody.
Monahan per week later stepped away for greater than a month with anxiety-induced bodily and psychological points. Throughout that point away, Monahan turned off his cellphone for a month.
“We had a participant assembly in Canada that each one of was intense and heated. Grayson and others had been extraordinarily vocal about their displeasure about my determination to maintain the membership within the coronary heart. The criticism, it was 100% warranted,” Monahan mentioned.
He mentioned when he lastly turned his cellphone again on throughout his depart, one of many first textual content messages he noticed was from Murray.
“A line in that textual content will at all times stick with me — ‘Jay I simply need you to get wholesome. I do know every little thing is doing to work out for our tour and for the higher,’” Monahan mentioned. “He supplied not condemnation however compassion. As an alternative of strolling away from me, he supplied to stroll with me.
“I’ll at all times be glad about this act of kindness, and I’m not alone.”
Monahan mentioned related tales had been shared in a non-public service for Murray and his household on Monday.
Gamers, together with Memorial founder Jack Nicklaus and spouse Barbara, crammed the seats. Tour officers stood flanked to the left, with dozens of different gamers, caddies, gear representatives and brokers filling the bottom to the precise. Greater than 100 spectators watched from a hill above the backyard as a bagpipe performed “Superb Grace” on the finish.
“I can solely supply the reassurance that Grayson’s reminiscence will function a continuing reminder that the PGA Tour is a brotherhood that transcends competitors,” Monahan mentioned. “And our foremost duty is to look after one another and be form. I can’t think about a prouder legacy.”
