In January 2024, Grayson Murray won the Sony Open in Hawaii after birdieing the first playoff hole.
“My life is going so well right now,” said Murray, who has spoken openly about his struggles with depression and alcohol. dependence“I wouldn’t trade anything. I have a beautiful fiancée. I have beautiful parents. I have beautiful nephews, brothers and sisters. Everyone who is close to me and has been through it with me, it’s a team effort.”
Four months later, a day after Murray walked off the green at a PGA Tour event in Texas, Murray committed suicide. He was 30.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that grief counselors will be available at upcoming PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour events, but the tragic news has also sparked a conversation around mental health provisions in individual sports like golf.
A proactive approach is needed
In 2021, Murray criticized the PGA Tour in a since-deleted tweet that criticized the competition for not giving him the right resources to deal with his anxiety, depression and alcohol issues.
“The PGA Tour didn’t force me to drink, but it never helped me,” he wrote. Murray added that in his five years on the tour, he had only received this response from the Players Advisory Council: “We will get back to you.”
Monahan said he immediately called Murray to try to improve the Tour’s mental health services.
The PGA Tour declined to comment on DW’s request for comment on its plans to update its mental health player services. In 2021, it provided details on the mental health services available to its players in Golf Summaryciting the provision of “mental wellness benefits” to players and their families as well as an outreach program that introduced mental health specialists to those in need.
In the context of modern sport, particularly in the United States, where the NFL and NBA have mandated working hours dedicated to the mental health and well-being of their players and staff, this tragic situation could force sports like golf to take more proactive measures.
Famous sports psychologist and former professional golfer Dan Abrahams says part of the problem is golf’s history with psychology Largely linked to performance, mental health and well-being are now at the heart of concerns, due to a generational change, better access to information and greater recognition of practices in other sports.
“(Golf) tends to be about performance psychology,” Abrahams tells DW. “And yet the world is now focused on mental health and well-being. And I think both of those are very, very relevant, especially in professional sport.”
Change of landscape
In individual sports, it is much harder to enforce mental health than in team sports. Sports like golf, which have seemed to lack psychological support beyond performance for years, are now faced with the challenge of modernizing support for their employees. the landscape is evolving beyond the need to meet only the needs of the bodyAbrahams believes that leading figures in high-pressure solo sports like golf will now be asking themselves whether the time has come to provide practitioners at events who allow players to access professional advice from a wellbeing and mental health perspective.
“I think these tours have a responsibility to create what you might call a psychologically informed environment where everyone from tournament officials to the players themselves have the opportunity to seek out an advisor who is on the ground. That can make a difference,” Abrahams says. “It’s the evolution of how we treat sport, how we treat people. It’s a more sophisticated approach to human involvement in sport.”
Mental health in everyday life
Whether it’s for a week or the entire month, May has long been the time of year when awareness around Mental health is improved through educationworkshops and local events. Abrahams is a big fan of these days, weeks and months because they provide a platform for conversation and intervention, but awareness is just the beginning. Managing mental health It is not a linear process, it is a continuous process. It evolves every day and therefore requires daily management.
“We are human beings and complex creatures living in complex and complicated worlds. We need to understand that every day, in many ways, requires a certain degree of mental health and well-being. Every day is a wellness day,” says Abrahams.
“We need psychologically informed environments that are embedded in cultures, and cultures that are embedded in coaching practices. It’s a daily thing, not just a one-day, one-week, one-month thing. And it requires a very sophisticated, knowledge-based form of coaching that involves everyone.”
Grayson Murray was a professional athlete who, as his parents’ statement and the outpouring of support from the golf community after his death show, was beloved. He himself said he had turned the page on his depression and addiction, but that it wasn’t enough to save him. His legacy to the world of sports could be that athletes are human beings first, but also that every day is a mental health day.
*Editor’s Note: If you are experiencing severe emotional stress or suicidal thoughts, do not hesitate to seek professional help. Information on where to find such help, no matter where you live in the world, can be found on this website: https://www.befrienders.org/
Edited by: Matt Pearson
