“I apologize for forcing everybody to come out here,” said Matt Kuchar to all the people at the Wyndham Championship. The PGA Tour pro was the only golfer to return to the Sedgefield Country Club to play what was regarded as the loneliest Monday match. On Sunday, the nine-time PGA Tour champion marked his ball in the 18th hole rough and walked off the course. The conditions were pretty dark and Kuchar told the tournament referee that he could not finish the final hole of the event in such a condition and, at that time, was tied for 12th place.

Unlike Kuchar, his tee-off partners, Max Greyersman and Chad Ramey, chose to complete their respective rounds. Leaving the 46-year-old to make a solo Monday finish and play six minutes of golf to complete the remaining shots of the final hole.

The official Instagram account of the PGA Tour took to their feed and shared a series of videos. In the carousel, the first three were snippets of the four shots Kuchar played to finish his round, and the latter two of them were him revealing the reason behind his decision. Kuchar said, “I think had I had been in the Fairway with the normal shot. I probably would have attempted to change the general rule of thumb and you’re playing.”

The play resumed at 8 a.m. on Monday. His decision did indeed turn out to be a favorable one for him. Coming back to the course in the morning gave him better visibility and he was also granted line-of-sight relief from a scoreboard. This allowed him to drop his ball on the fairway. He had a par finish on the 18th hole.

Back on Sunday, Kuchar had higher chances of carding a bogey, and that would have dropped him down on the leaderboard. “Coming back in the morning, like, I never would have taken that drop last night. I never would have thought to ask. I would have had a, I knew I was in a terrible situation,” he said.

The Monday finish propelled Kuchar by 10 spots, from 113 to 103 in the FedEx Cup standings. Although he is far away from the top 70, the jump definitely increased his chances of finishing within the top 125 and retaining his tour card for the upcoming 2025 season.

Further, PGA Tour Communications shared a post about his outside top-10 finish, and wrote, “The Wyndham Championship was completed at 8:06 a.m. Matt Kuchar makes par at No. 18 and finishes T12.”  The whole incident did not sit well with many golf lovers, and Matt Kuchar’s decision was heavily criticized on social media.

The golf community calls out Matt Kuchar for his Monday finish

This is not the first time that Matt Kuchar has come under the spotlight for creating a stir on the greens. Back in the 2019 Mayakoba, he was subjected to criticism for not paying his fill-in caddie, David Ortiz, an industry-standard 10% cut from his $1.3 million payday. The pro later apologized to his fans, went on to acknowledge how his actions were rather insensitive, and stated his intentions of resolving the situation with Ortiz.

And now, once again, the Wyndham Championship incident has drawn attention. After his solo finish, Kuchar stated that he was trying to help Max Greyserman in hopes that he would follow his lead in stopping play. He did that before Aaron Rai carded a birdie and finished with a two-stroke lead. Taking to this, people left comments like, “He bugs. A lot” and “This is the type of dude who reports you to the marshal for having a beer in your bag.”

According to Rule No. 5.7, as stated on the official website of the PGA Tour, once a player has decided to stop his play, they cannot resume until the Rules Committee restarts play. Even Tacket stated that suspension of the match due to darkness is something that the golf world often faces, and thus there was not much they could do. However, one of the fans ridiculed the decision by saying, “The fact you guys allowed him to do this is astonishing. What a joke.”

Although Matt Kuchar finished with a par, there were chances that he could have carded a birdie as well. Nonetheless, by finishing in the T12 position (because of his par finish), he took home a whopping $134,695, nearly double what he would have taken home had he carded a bogey. Taking to this, one of them even commented, “Damn he almost holes out for birdie.”

Matt Kuchar played a hybrid approach to the short right of the green. He almost made his chip shot, which resulted in the ball ending up close enough for an easy tap-in range. He easily hit the ball for the fourth shot from the fairway, which was pretty unexpected. Taking to this, one of them even commented, “Blew it in trees. How did he end up being able to hit from the fairway?!?!”

Well, Tiger Woods was right when he said, “Golf is a lonely sport.” At least Matt Kuchar got to experience it firsthand. What are your thoughts about what happened at the Wyndham Championship? Let us know in the comments section below!