Matt Kuchar’s Wyndham Championship came to a bizarre end Monday morning.
The PGA Tour veteran, who was the only player who opted not to finish the 18th hole on Sunday evening because of darkness, returned at 8 a.m. ET to par the 72nd and final hole of the tournament.
It took him six minutes to complete his 18th hole on Monday morning.
“Nobody wants to be that guy that’s showing up today: one person, one hole – not even one hole, half-a-hole to putt,” Kuchar said Monday. “So apologies to the tournament, to everybody that had to come out. I know it stinks. I know the ramifications. I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”
Kuchar’s next-day par clinched his 10-way tie for 12th, which netted him nearly $145,000. He had already been eliminated from the FedExCup playoffs, finishing the regular season at No. 103 in the standings and ending his streak as the only active player to advance to the postseason every year since the cup’s inception in 2007. With the top 125 at the end of the fall slate keeping their cards for 2025, Kuchar’s finishing position could go a long way to helping him maintain his playing privileges for next season.
After a brief warmup on the range and practice putting green Monday, Kuchar was driven back out to the 18th hole with a Tour official serving as the marker for the group. (Kuchar’s fellow playing competitors did not have to return to the course.)
Kuchar’s final tee shot had sailed well left, 212 yards from the flag – one of the main reasons, he said, why he didn’t finish on Sunday night; in dwindling daylight, he believed his best-case scenario was a bogey, since he didn’t have enough time to properly assess his options. But now, after receiving line-of-sight relief from the scoreboard near the green, he dropped in the adjacent fairway, No. 10, and came up just short of the green. His pitch shot clanked off the flagstick for a tap-in par.
Kuchar finishes up with a par and a T12 @WyndhamChamp
— Kevin Prise (@PGATOURKevin) August 12, 2024
Handshakes of appreciation .. moves up 10 spots to No. 103 on FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List, huge for his top-125 status
Smattering of patrons appreciate as well pic.twitter.com/c3oZyWkXwh
It was a confusing and confounding decision to end what was an otherwise gripping end to the Tour’s regular season.
In the final threesome and trying to beat sunset after a marathon day at Sedgefield Country Club, Kuchar teed off first on the 18th hole even with tournament leader Aaron Rai lining up his approach shot in the fairway. Kuchar said he had incorrectly assumed that the second-to-last group was already up on the green.
When he found his tee shot buried in the left trees, Kuchar marked his ball and told a rules official that he was done for the day.
“It was a horrible place,” Kuchar said. “Had it been a standard shot, I most likely would have proceeded (on Sunday).”
Kuchar later told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis on Sunday that he was hoping to set an example for rookie Max Greyserman, who had coughed up a four-shot lead with five holes to play, by deciding not to play his second shot and return in the morning. Instead, Greyserman watched Rai pour in the winning putt up on the green, so he went ahead and played, his closing par enough to secure second place alone.
“I did not realize Aaron Rai made birdie on the last, so I’m over on 10 trying to figure out what I’m going to do,” Kuchar said. “I’m figuring no way Max is going to finish out with a chance to win a tournament. I thought Max, for sure, had a shot to win, and I thought no way in this situation do you hit this shot – you come back in the morning 100% of the time.
“So I said, Well, Max will stop, I’ll stop, kind of make it easy on him. And for me, coming back in the morning, like I never would have taken that drop last night. I never would have thought to ask. I knew I was in a terrible situation; I was praying to make bogey from where I was. To walk away with par, nearly birdie, is a huge bonus.”
Though Rai was declared the winner and posed with the trophy, the tournament was not officially complete because Kuchar was the only player in the field who had yet to finish all 72 holes.
“I just hope it doesn’t cause too many problems,” he said.
The 46-year-old said he was only aware of the stir he had caused after receiving a call from his agent.
“I’m grateful to not be a part of the social-media thing,” he said.
