Tiger Woods once said that “golf is a lonely sport.” Matt Kuchar knows the feeling after a bizarre ending Monday to the Wyndham Championship.
Kuchar was the only player who opted not to finish Sunday’s final round at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, due to darkness.
The PGA Tour veteran returned to the course Monday at 8 a.m. ET to play his 72nd hole, parring the 508-yard, par-4 18th to finish in a 10-way tie for 12th place at 11 under — seven strokes behind winner Aaron Rai of England.
Kuchar’s final tee shot on Sunday night had sailed to the left, leaving him 212 yards to the flag. Wanting more time to assess his options but running out of daylight, he made the unusual decision to finish on Monday.
After receiving line-of-sight relief due to the scoreboard near the green, Kuchar dropped in the adjacent fairway and came up short of the green. His third shot struck the flagstick, leaving him a tap-in par. It took six minutes for Kuchar to complete the hole.
Kuchar apologized Monday to all the staff and employees who had to return to the course Monday for him.
“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 know it stinks. Certainly I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”
The T12 finish came with a $135,000 paycheck. Kuchar, 46, also moved up 10 spots to No. 103 in the FedEx Cup playoffs — a big boost to his chances of finishing the season in the Top 125 and maintaining his tour card for 2025.
Information from Field Level Media and Reuters was used in this report.