Grayson Murray completed a career comeback in dramatic fashion Sunday evening in Hawaii.
Murray holed a 39-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to win the PGA Tour’s Sony Open. Murray, Byeong Hun An and Keegan Bradley tied at 17-under through 72 holes at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu. An missed a birdie chance from 4 feet to extend the playoff.
As a recovering alcoholic who has endured a rocky few years during which he fell into an emotional black hole, Murray credited “a lot of hard work” for his resurgence.
“It’s not easy,” Murray said in a tearful post-round interview. “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.”
“I hope everyone at home watching can get a little inspiration from me. If I can just help one person, that’s all it takes.”
With the victory, the second of his career after the 2017 Barbasol Championship, Murray earned $1.494 million from the $8.3 million purse. He also secured his first trip to Augusta National for the Masters in April.
“It’s a lot for my career,” he said. “I’m excited.”
Murray has been cast as something of a bad boy on the PGA Tour. The 30-year-old North Carolinian, who acknowledged in a 2021 social-media post that he was dealing with alcohol abuse, was knocked unconscious and treated for injuries at a Bermuda hospital in 2022 when he crashed a scooter head-on into a car and had to withdraw from the Bermuda Championship.
Last year, Murray reportedly spoke out against commissioner Jay Monahan during a heated players’ meeting at the RBC Canadian Open in the days after the tour’s “framework agreement” with the Saudis was announced. When Rory McIlroy advised Murray to “just play better” and qualify for the big-money “signature events,” Murray responded with an expletive to McIlroy.
In the tour’s first full-field event of 2024, Murray made good on McIlroy’s challenge. He played a bogey-free final round and signed for a 67. Murray led the field in two key strokes-gained categories: off the tee (plus-5.1) and tee to green (plus-8.9). He also tied for first in sand-save percentage, getting up and down from the bunkers on all 12 occasions.
However, Murray’s greatest clutch play came during his final two trips down the dogleg-left par-5 18th.
He wedged to within tap-in range on the 72nd hole for a birdie and a spot in the playoff with An and Bradley. Then, on the replay of the 18th, Murray tugged a wedge and left himself the longest birdie putt in the group. He jarred it, reacted with an emphatic fist pump and then watched Bradley miss from 17 feet, before An shockingly stabbed a 4-foot birdie attempt that would have forced a second extra hole.
Bradley, 37, the 2011 PGA Championship winner, narrowly missed making his third Ryder Cup team last year. He finished 11th in points for the 12-man team and did not get one of the six at-large picks by captain Zach Johnson.
China’s Carl Yuan, the 36-hole co-leader, closed with a 63 to share fourth place with Russell Henley, the 2013 Sony champion.
Yuan (pronounced YOO-ann) took advantage of his off-season fortune. When Jon Rahm bolted for LIV Golf in December and was suspended by the PGA Tour, Yuan, 26, moved up one spot, from No. 126 in the final 2023 FedEx Cup standings, avoiding Q-School and earning full status for this season. With the new life came a spot in the Sony Open.
J.T. Poston surged up the leaderboard Sunday with a final-round 61, the low round of the week, to finish solo sixth.
Gary Woodland, the 39-year-old former U.S. Open champion, made his first start in five months after having undergone surgery to remove a benign brain lesion. He missed the cut by four strokes after consecutive rounds of 1-over 71.
The PGA Tour begins its first of five consecutive tournaments on the West Coast this week with the American Express at the Pete Dye Stadium Course in La Quinta, California.
Steve Harmon