Scottie Scheffler admitted that it was difficult to play golf following the news of Grayson Murray’s sudden and tragic death on Saturday.
Scheffler shot his first over par final round of the season as he was unable to chase down Davis Riley at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas.
Players wore red and black colours in tribute to Murray whose family implored the PGA Tour to continue the tournament despite news of the 30-year-old taking his own life on Saturday.
“Overall proud of the fight this week,” Scheffler said. “Obviously, it was a pretty difficult day to come out to the golf course with news of Grayson yesterday and, you know, spent that moment of silence today really just thinking about him and praying for his family and his fiancée.
“Obviously, it was pretty difficult to come to play golf. But like his parents said, he would have wanted the tournament to continue. I got to know him fairly well over the last few months, shared a couple of meals with him, and played a couple of practice rounds.
“I was with him for a few hours, he was at our rental house last week. It’s a tough day for all of us out here on Tour and we’re thinking about his family and we’re praying hard for them, for sure.”
Riley himself has been through a tough time recently after his sister Caroline had a seizure and underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour last week.
“When you have somebody that close to you, all the worst-case scenarios are going through your head,” Riley said. “It was certainly a scary feeling thinking about how you could lose your sister.
“But, thankfully my parents were up there; she was around some amazing doctors, and they took good care of her. We actually got some great news early this week.
“They had a successful surgery, removed the brain tumour, sent it off for a pathology report, and it came back non-cancerous, which was amazing; a big sigh of relief.
“Obviously, hearing that news last week, I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to play this week. Honestly, I was a little beside myself for most of the week last week.
“But my parents told me that my sister wanted me to go out there and play and compete and do what I love and that meant the world to me.
“I’m just very fortunate and excited that she was in really good hands and everything is in the right direction.”
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