After struggling with mental health and alcoholism, two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died by suicide last Saturday. His parents Eric and Terry Murray released a statement disclosing the news, “We have spent the last 24 hours trying to come to terms with the fact that our son is gone.” They asked for privacy and fans to be kind to one another. “If that becomes his legacy, we could ask for nothing more,” the announcement ends.
His first coach Ted Kiegel was devastated, “Words cannot express the tragedy of this moment. Grayson came from something that was ordinary and made it EXTRAORDINARY. He burned bright for the 30 years he gave us,” he said in a statement shared with the Associated Press.
On Friday, Murray had just withdrawn from competition at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, citing illness. After the news of his death spread on Sunday, players wore black-and-red pins on their caps– the colors of the Carolina Hurricanes, his favorite NHL team–to honor his memory. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan recalled his resiliency as, “one of the elements of his legacy.”
Murray started his career in golf at age 8. He won his age division three straight years at the Junior World Championship in San Diego, one of the most prestigious tournaments representing more than a thousand participants. Growing up, he struggled to fit in at college, changing from Wake Forest to East Carolina and Arizona State. At 22, as a rookie, he won the Barbasol Championship in Kentucky, but he started growing frustrated as he did not improve as quickly as he would have liked.
His last achievement was the 2024 Sony Open in Honolulu, Hawaii, last January. He birdied the last hole to get into a playoff, and made a 40-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole for an emotional win. He spoke about his life, “I wanted to give up a lot of times. Give up on myself. Give up on the game of golf. Give up on life, at times,” was his poignant and as it turned out, prescient comment.
