Matt Kuchar's decision to forego finishing the 18th hole at the Wyndham Championship almost two weeks ago was met with criticism and confusion. Kuchar opted to cite the darkness and was the only player who marked his ball before leaving for the day. He explained that Max Greyserman, who'd lost a significant lead in the darkness, was a big reason he decided not to continue.
This came off strange to Greyserman, who was eventually pressed to comment on what Kuchar had said. He claimed that Kuchar hadn't said a word to him and wondered why he would name-drop Greyserman at all in that situation.
He said he had only been one back on the 17th, which he made par. It was certainly dark for Greyserman and Kuchar seemed as if he wanted to finish the hole quickly.
Greyserman said (via Golf Magic):
"It looked like he was just trying to get the tee in the ground and hit quickly because he wanted to finish right? There was nobody telling us there were people in the fairway. There's people in the fairway at the time."
After Kuchar pulled his shot to the left, everyone else teed off. Kuchar then called an official who said that they would ordinarily call it, but they were going to finish since Kuchar and Greyserman were two of the last few playing the 18th.
Greyserman added:
"Everyone knows that if you want to stop now, you can stop. We all went along our way down the fairway and I saw Aaron Rai made birdie [on the 18th green] and so at that point I was two shots away. I'm like 'okay, I don't even need to come back in the morning.'"
Greyserman said that he could have tried from there with a better opportunity in the morning, but it wouldn't have made a difference. He hit his shot and looked over to see Kuchar marking his ball.
He finished by saying:
"I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I think he need TIO relief, and benefit of the doubt, it was maybe going to take him a lot of time, which is fine for him. But to come out and say that he was trying to do something in service to me or something like that, I thought that was pretty strange.'"
Matt Kuchar ended up making par on the 18th to preserve a T12 finish.
Matt Kuchar cites Max Greyserman for delay in finish
Matt Kuchar came back alone for the final hole early Monday morning after everyone else had finished, thus officially completing the tournament. Kuchar eventually said that he had done this largely because of Max Greyserman.
Greyserman blew a lead thanks in part to a quadruple bogey late in the final round, and Matt Kuchar implied that Greyserman shouldn't have been playing then anyway. Kuchar explained (via Golf Magic):
"We were so far past when we should’ve stopped playing. We saw what Max did on hole 16 (four-putting for a double bogey) – they should’ve blown the horn there I feel bad, the poor kid should’ve won this tournament. By me not playing, it may show Max he has an important shot to hit."
With Greyserman's response, it seems as if Kuchar made this decision all on his own and didn't even alert the other golfer.