Matt Kuchar has $58,000 reasons to consider himself vindicated after returning to Sedgefield Country Club to complete his final round of the Wyndham Championship on Monday morning.
65 of the 66 who teed it up in Sunday’s final round concluded their tournaments on the evening in question, with 46-year-old Kuchar the sole player to refuse to continue playing as darkness descended upon the event that was heavily disrupted by weather delays from the get go.
After ricocheting into the trees with the drive on 18, Kuchar returned on Monday morning and received line-of-sight relief from the scoreboard next to the 18th green and was able to drop clear and play his approach shot to just short of the green.
He almost made birdie as his chip shot hit the flag and came to rest at tap-in distance, and he cleaned up for a par that was worth $58,000 more than a bogey would’ve been.
“Listen, nobody wants to be that guy, which I feel I turned into, the one guy that didn’t finish,” Kuchar said after completing his round in seven minutes. “I can’t tell you how many times I have been finished with a round thinking, bummed out that somebody didn’t finish, that we didn’t get to make the cut because somebody didn’t finish. Here it’s me now as the guy that didn’t get to finish the tournament.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been so happy to have just finished. Round 2, we had Gary Woodland run to the ninth tee that hit a final shot to be able to let us finish Round 2.
“Like I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to finish, how many times I’ve been
bummed to have one or two holes left.
“But last night, last night was dark. I mean, we had texts that Round 1 was suspended at 8:15, Round 2 was suspended at 8:25. That was to make the cut, so they pushed it even longer. Last night Round 4 was suspended at 8:40, like it was dark.”
Kuchar suggested that had he not been in the trees, and had playing partner Max Greyserman not been in with a chance of victory, it may have been a different story.
“I think had I been in the fairway with a normal shot, I probably would have attempted to finish, but I had just seen Max four-putt the 16th hole,” he said. “If there was daylight on that green, does he four-putt? I don’t know, I don’t know. But I just watched something happen. I had a putt three holes prior, 13th hole, decent daylight, no daylight on the green, totally covered in shade, missed a five-footer. Like I’m thinking it’s hard to putt.
“The general rule of thumb, I don’t know if you guys know, the general rule of thumb when you’re playing, you try to hit a tee shot if you can hit a tee shot. If you’ve got a reasonable approach, you hit it, you putt in the morning. You mark it, you wait if you have any sort of important putt.
“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. 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 percent 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.
“Again, it stinks to — nobody wants to be that guy that’s showing up today, one person, one hole. Not even one hole, half a hole to putt.
“So apologies to the tournament, to everybody that had to come out. I know it stinks, I know the ramifications, I know it stinks. Certainly I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”
Kuchar was widely criticised on social media and in the press for his decision, but he claims not to have been aware of anything specifically, though he was made aware by his agent that he was the subject of discourse.
“Not, not — thankfully, I avoid that stuff,” he explained. “I did get a call from my agent, said hey, you’re causing quite a stir, so that was the little I heard. I’m grateful to not be a part of the social media thing.”