Published on June 02, 2025

UNC Health Championship again holds honorary tee time for late Grayson Murray

An honorary tee time for the late Grayson Murray was being held Sunday at the UNC Health Championship at Raleigh Country Club when there was a brief interruption.

The ceremony to remember the Raleigh native and former PGA Tour winner had just begun when it was halted. Wilson Furr, playing the nearby ninth hole in the tournament’s fourth round, had missed the green to the left, the ball settling near the crowd gathered at the adjacent first tee.

All was quiet as Furr wedged on to the green, later making par.

One could almost imagine Murray, always courteous to his peers, stepping back from his tee shot to first allow Furr to play. Murray also was the kind who would have said “good shot” to Furr, and meant it.

Murray’s kindness and generosity to others was mentioned often Sunday during a ceremony that included his parents, Eric and Terry Murray of Raleigh. Murray took his own life in May 2024 at age 30, a day after withdrawing from the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas.

At the 2024 UNC Health Championship a week later, an honorary tee time for Murray was set aside at the Korn Ferry Tour event at Raleigh CC. His parents, brother and sister attended along with his tour caddie, Jay Green, who stood by Murray’s tour golf bag.

Soon after that ceremony, it was announced the Grayson Murray Foundation would be created to raise mental health and addiction awareness and help others in need of help. The foundation officially was launched in January at the 2025 Sony Open in Hawaii, the PGA Tour tournament Murray won last year with a 39-foot winning putt on the 18th hole, the first of a playoff.

Eric Murray said the last year has been “hell” on the family. He compared it to drowning and being under water and constantly “fighting to get back up.”

“And then then when you’re up, you have waves that just come, over and over, and knock you back down,” he said. “The waves are still coming and they’re heavy and they’re hard. They’re coming a little less often, but they still hit you, almost on a daily basis. It’s tough.

“We don’t want people to go through what we’re going through. We want to catch young people in particular before it gets to where Grayson ended up. And that’s what Grayson would want. He wanted to help people. That’s why he started speaking out. We need to talk about depression and mental illness just the way we talk about cancer. It’s a disease and it needs to be treated.”

Jeff Maness of Raleigh, a close friend of the Murray family and the foundation president, announced Sunday that the first Grayson Murray Classic would be held Oct. 6, 2025, with a mix of pro golfers and celebrities participating in the one-day fund-raising event.

John McConnell, the RCC owner and president/CEO of McConnell Golf, stepped up and said a $100,000 contribution would be made to become the event’s title sponsor. “I didn’t know that was going to happen, but it doesn’t surprise us coming from John,” Maness said.

A plaque in Murray’s honor has been added to the tournament’s wall of fame behind the first tee at Raleigh CC. It refers to Murray as an “Honorary Member and Professional Emeritus.”

“Any time any golfer tees off, they’ll remember Grayson Murray,” McConnell said.

Trace Crowe was the last to tee off Sunday. The former Auburn golfer, who now lives in Raleigh, was the third-round leader and had a 65 on Sunday to take a five-shot victory.

Grayson Murray first learned his golf at Wildwood Green Golf Club in Raleigh but became a member of the McConnell Junior Scholarship program. A Leesville High graduate, he became a regular at Raleigh Country Club, spending many an afternoon playing the last course designed by legendary Donald Ross.

“This was his second home,” Eric Murray said. “It was a special place.”

Murray would play college golf at Wake Forest, East Carolina and Arizona State before turning pro in 2016. He won the first of two PGA Tour tournament victories at the 2017 Barbasol Open and would be a winner three times on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Through it all, however, he struggled with depression and alcoholism and was open about it, addressing it on social media. At times, he would return home to Raleigh to get through some dark periods in his life, drawing on the support of family.

Murray came close to winning the 2023 UNC Health Championship in 2023, the first year it was held at Raleigh CC. He could not hold a final-round lead on the back nine on Sunday, but patiently answered media questions after the disappointing finish. He talked of his sobriety and the positively he held about the rest of the golf season.

A year ago, all seemed well for Murray. He won the Sony. He played the 2024 Masters at Augusta National and was set to go to Pinehurst for the 2024 U.S. Open. He was engaged to be married.

Maness said he played with Murray and Akshay Bhatia, a PGA Tour pro from Wake Forest, and Green in early May, a few days before the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte. It was Murray’s last round at Raleigh CC, Maness said.

The Murrays recently traveled to Fort Worth before the 2025 Schwab Challenge. They went to Colonial Country Club and walked the par-3 16th hole, the last Grayson would play. He missed a short par putt at the hole, then withdrew from the tournament.

The next day, the PGA Tour announced Murray had died. His parents later would confirm he took his own life.

“We had his caddie, Jay Green, with us, able to tell us exactly where the ball had gone and exactly what Grayson had spoken to him,” Terry Murray said of the emotional return to the 16th hole.

The Murrays have stayed busy the past year. They’ve been interviewed by Carson Daly on NBC’s Today Show, and for a piece in Golf Digest, trying to further spread Grayson’s story and heighten awareness about clinical depression, about the personal demons their son fought.

“There has been an ocean of tears and it continues to be painful and we continue to grieve,” Maness said. “But with time, the wound starts to heal. Eric and Terry have shown amazing strength and resiliency.”