‘I know it stinks’: Matt Kuchar doesn’t regret 12-hour, 1-hole decision

Matt Kuchar, in the end, made a ho-hum par. 

The journey toward his four strokes, though, will be remembered and bandied about for a while. His path, after all, traversed like this on the 508-yard, par-4 18th at Sedgefield Country Club, during Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship:

— A tee shot hit at about 8:15 p.m. ET while three fellow pros were readying to play their second shots from the fairway up ahead, with one of the players being the tournament leader;

— A tee shot shoved left, into the adjacent 10th hole; 

— An option from a rules official either to continue playing as darkness fell in Greensboro, N.C., or to stop and come back Monday morning, though, somewhat interestingly, no darkness horn was sounded; 

— A decision to pause, though Kuchar was not in line for a victory; he was not in contention to make the Tour’s postseason (the Wyndham is the Tour’s final regular-season event); and his playing partners in the tournament’s final grouping, Chad Ramey and and Max Greyserman, had opted to play on, with Greyserman a stroke out of the lead to begin the hole;

— An infinite number of thoughts from various observers questioning Kuchar’s move; 

— A return at 8 Monday morning, where Kuchar hit the range, hit the practice green, hit up a rules official for temporary immovable obstruction relief upon getting back to his ball, hit short of the green after receiving the relief, hit on the green and hit one putt for his four.  

Kuchar then talked with the reporter bunch that stuck around, though one question was more pressing than all the rest. 

Why?

Kuchar seemingly had predicted that was coming. A reporter had started the post-round gathering by asking a question about Kuchar’s score, but the longtime pro instead went into a lengthy explanation. A later question asking whether Kuchar would’ve done anything differently, though, was most telling. 

He said he wouldn’t have. 

“I just hope it doesn’t cause too many problems,” Kuchar said. 

Outside of forcing various officials and workers to return solely for him, that was unlikely. So what was Kuchar’s rationale? He repeated an explanation he’d offered to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis on Sunday — he didn’t know that eventual winner Aaron Rai, the player who led Greyserman by a shot, had birdied the 18th in the group ahead to go up two, and he believed that Greyserman would also stop, knowing what was at stake. Kuchar said he thought he’d “make it easy” on his playing partner’s decision by calling it a day himself, though it was unclear whether he had raised the thought to Greyserman face to face. 

Kuchar said had he been in the fairway after his tee shot on 18, he probably would’ve tried to play, but he’d also watched Greyserman four-putt the 16th — and questioned whether darkness there had played a role in that tumble. (Of course, if Kuchar had hit the 18th fairway, with the threesome of Rai, Billy Horschel and Cameron Young standing in it, a whole new batch of issues would’ve arisen.) 

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“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 Monday morning. “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 [relief] 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.”

Also curious was the tee shot. 

Why hit that clearly hurriedly when he would soon choose to stop? Kuchar said there’s a “rule of thumb” in play. 

“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,” he said. “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.”

Did Kuchar see the players in the fairway when he hit? 

“Clearly, clearly I was not hitting to hit just to push,” he said “I thought — I was on the tee, there was a guy in pink walking on the green. I assumed it was Billy Horschel. There was a pink shirt walking on the back of the green, I assumed they were already up there and they were not.”

For his par, Kuchar finished in a 10-way tie for 12th and earned a $144,965 paycheck. Ahead of his second shot on Monday, several other scenarios were in play. Should he have holed-out for eagle — which was unlikely, even with the relief — he would’ve jumped into a tie for sixth, which would’ve paid him $305,137.50. Should he have birdied, he would’ve moved into a six-way tie for seventh, which would’ve paid him $240,950 — and a bogey would’ve dropped Kuchar into a seven-way tie for 21st, which would’ve paid him $83,232. Nothing, though, would’ve advanced him into the Tour’s postseason — Kuchar couldn’t have accumulated enough points on Monday to move into a top 70 cut-off.   

So Kuchar will sit now. Notably, he’d been the only player to make the playoffs in every season since the FedEx Cup began in 2007. 

One more question, though:

Had he seen any of the reaction to the 12-hour, one-hole ordeal?

Sort of. 

“Thankfully, I avoid that stuff,” he said. “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.”