Professional golfer Peter Malnati gave a heartbreaking, tear-filled interview on CBS Saturday, after the news broke that fellow golfer Grayson Murray had suddenly passed away at the age of 30.
“You know, this is, this is gonna be really hard,” Malnati said to CBS Sports’ Amanda Balionis, already visibly choked up.
“I didn’t know Grayson all that well but I spent the last two days with him,” Malnati continued, fighting tears.
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Murray’s passing was announced on Saturday morning, just hours after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Tournament over an unspecified illness.
“We get so worked up out here about a bad break here, or a good break there, and, look…” Malnati paused as the tears began to overwhelm him. He brought his palm to his face to wipe them away as he quietly sobbed.
“You know, we’re so competitive,” he said after a beat. “It’s so competitive out here. We all want to beat each other. And then something like this happens and you realize we’re all just humans.”
Malnati spoke about how painful it was to hear news of Murray’s passing in light of how honest he had been about his mental health struggles, and how he seemed to be on the comeback in recent months.
“It’s a really hard day, because you look at Grayson and you see in him someone who has visibly, outwardly struggled in the past. And he’s been open about it. And you see him kind of get his life back to a place where he’s been good about things,” Malnati said. “And he’s playing great. His game is so good. He’s so good at golf.”
Murray had won his second PGA Tour victory just four months earlier, at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January. After that win, he shared during a news conference that he’d been sober for eight months, and opened up about his struggles with alcohol abuse during his career.
“It took me a long time to get to this point,” Murray said in January, after his win. “I’m a different man now. I would not be in this position right now today if I didn't put that drink down eight months ago.”
On Sunday, Murray’s parents revealed in a statement that the pro golfer had taken his own life on Saturday morning.
Malnati, speaking in memory of the late golfer, shared a short story about how the Wake Forest men’s golf coach told him that Murray was one of the most talented players to come through the school.
“Grayson, he put that talent on display this year,” Malnati said.
“To know he’s not gonna be doing that anymore, it’s a huge loss for all of us on the PGA Tour, it’s a huge loss for our fans,” the golfer continued.
“You realize that as much as we want to beat each other, as much as you want to be competitive, we really are one big family. And we lost one today, and that’s terrible.”
