Matt Kuchar got a hole-for-one after refusing to finish the final round of the Wyndham Championship because of darkness.
It meant the veteran golfer had to return to Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina at 8 a.m. Eastern Time and play the 18th hole by himself on Monday to close out the tournament Aaron Rai won at 18-under to close out the PGA Tour’s regular season.
Kuchar, 46, parred the 508-yard, par-4 in six minutes to finish in a 10-way tie for 12th place at 11 under for a $135,000 payday.
“I was praying to make bogey from where I was,” Kuchar said in his post-hole interview on Monday. “To walk away with par, nearly birdie. it’s a huge bonus.”.
But more importantly, it catapulted him up 10 spots in the FedEx Cup Playoffs to No. 103 as he needs to finish in the Top 125 to maintain his tour card for next year.
Kuchar felt bad about making tournament staff return for him to finish the hole after ending Sunday just 212 yards from the flag.
“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, per ESPN.
“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.”
He got to this point after his tee shot on 18 sailed left and he didn’t want to rush a decision on how to approach his next shot.
On Monday, he ended up dropping on a nearby fairway after getting line-of-sight relief because of the scoreboard near the green.
He failed to reach the green on his second shot, hit the flag stick on this third and tapped in for par.
“I think had I been in the fairway with normal shot, I think I probably would have attempted to finish,” Kuchar said. … “Coming back in the morning, I never would have taken that drop last night. I never would have thought to ask. I knew I was in a terrible situation.”