PGA Tour golfer Peter Malnati became emotional when speaking about Grayson Murray.
Murray, a two-time PGA Tour winner, died Saturday morning.
He was 30 years old.
Malnati and Murray played in the same group during the first two rounds of the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, before Murray withdrew on Friday due to illness.
“This is going to be really hard,” Malnati said in an interview with CBS’ Amanda Balionis during the broadcast. “I didn’t know Grayson all that well, but I spent the last two days with him. It’s so funny, we get so worked up out here about a bad break here or a good break there.”
Malnati, 36, then began trying to fight back tears.
“We’re so competitive out here, we all want to beat each other, and then something like this happens, and you realize, we’re all just humans,” he said. “It’s just a really hard day.”
A cause of death has not yet been revealed.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan offered to pause the Charles Schwab Challenge on Saturday, but Murray’s family insisted that the tournament continue.
“I am at a loss for words,” Monahan said in a statement on Saturday. “The PGA Tour is a family, and when you lose a member of your family, you are never the same.”
Murray previously talked openly about battling depression and alcoholism, and he had recently been in the midst of a career resurgence.
He won the Sony Open in January, after which Murray detailed his struggles.
“It’s not easy,” Murray said. “I wanted to give up a lot of times. Give up on myself. Give up on the game of golf. Give up on life, at times.”
Malnati touched on that topic during his interview.
“You look at Grayson and you see him, someone who has visibly, outwardly struggled in the past,” Malnati said. “And he’s been open about it. And you see him get his life back to a place where he’s feeling good about things, it’s just so sad.”
