World number one Scottie Scheffler led the tributes to Grayson Murray after the shock death of the two-time PGA Tour winner, a day after he pulled out of the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas.
The 30-year-old withdrew with two holes remaining of Friday’s second round, citing illness and his death was announced by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who said Murray’s parents had asked for the event in Fort Worth to continue after speaking to them.
Scheffler, who moved into second place in the tournament on 14 under after a third-round 66, said: “Obviously, the news hasn’t really sunk in quite yet, but I’m thinking about his family and praying hard for all of them.
“I can’t imagine how difficult of a time this is. I got to know Grayson a bit better over the last six months or so.
“There’s not really a way to put into words how sad and tragic it is, but I’m thinking about his family.”
In January, Murray – after his last victory at the Sony Open in Hawaii – spoke about his battles with anxiety and depression and revealed he had sought treatment in the past few years for alcohol abuse but had been sober for several months.
Three years ago he posted on social media he felt the Tour did not do enough to assist players who dealt with illnesses such as his.
“When Grayson said that, I called him right away,” Monahan said on Saturday.
“Over the last several years I spent a lot of time with him because I wanted to understand what we could do, in his opinion, to help everybody else out here.
“I’m devastated by Grayson’s loss. The conversations I had with him, particularly the last year, I learned an awful lot from him. He was very open and transparent with me.
“We don’t know the circumstances around Grayson’s passing. My conversations with Grayson in the area of mental health… we’re always challenging ourselves to make certain that we’re on the front edge of being able to provide the support that we can for everybody out here.
“These are some of the best athletes in the world. They think they’re, in many respects, invincible.
“One of the things I think back about Grayson’s openness is he taught us all a lesson on that front and that’s something I’ll never forget.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here