Evanson: The PGA Tour's Grayson Murray is gone, but why he's gone shouldn't be forgotten

Grayson Murray is no longer with us.

The 30-year-old PGA Tour player committed suicide on May 25, a day after withdrawing from the Charles Schwab Challenge and less than five months removed from his second win on tour and his first since putting his bouts with depression, anxiety and alcoholism on display for all to see.

But while admitting and fully acknowledging a problem or problems is typically the first step to overcoming it or them, it’s not the last, and the road from beginning to end is fraught with obstacles — the most dangerous of which is likely yourself.

The mind is an extremely powerful thing. But while that and it can often work in your favor, when it comes to demons that at times prey on our insecurities, it can be our own worst enemy.

Murray was a bit of a golfing prodigy. He was the top-ranked player nationally in his age group as a junior, won a state high school championship, and at the age of 19 qualified for and played in the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania.

Since turning professional in 2015, he won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour (the PGA Tour’s feeder circuit) and twice on the PGA Tour, including this past January at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where he as a part of his acceptance speech spoke candidly about the difficulties he still faced with depression and anxiety, but also with delight about how far he’d come in his journey to a healthier life, along with the woman and the faith that had helped him get there.

“I knew today was not going to change my life,” Murray said following his win in Hawaii. “My fiancée changed my life, Jesus Christ changed my life. Today wasn’t going to change my life, but it did change my career a little bit, and I’m excited.”

That excitement seemingly waned in the months afterwards, but even more likely in moments like the ones that exist for professional athletes, and even more so members of the PGA Tour.

While certainly having its glamorous side, professional sports can be a lonely place. The ups and downs that typically accompany the men and women who play them, can offer the highest of highs, but at the same time, experiences and moments to the contrary.

Professional golf is a new location every week. It’s air travel, rental cars, long days, and worst of all, hotel rooms where the memories of a bad day, week or month come for you when you’ve got no one there to protect you. No wife or girlfriend, no parents, no kids, and ultimately no or a very far-off light at the end of what can be a very dark tunnel.

Then there’s the criticism that comes as part of being a public figure, and of course social media which has become the unkindest of everyday places.

That can be a paralyzing existence for even the healthiest of people, but for those struggling with the internal complexities Murray and so many others face, a level of pain with which you or I may not or can’t relate.

This past week, the LPGA Tour’s Lexi Thompson said that this would be her last full season on the professional golf circuit. Despite being just 29-years-of-age, the nearly 15-year-professional and 11-time-winner said she’d had enough, citing concerns for her own mental health as the result of the life professional golfers lead as a significant factor in her decision.

“Being out here can be a lot,” she said, fighting back tears. “It can be lonely.

“I just think, especially with what’s happened in golf, as of recently, too, a lot of people don’t realize what we go through as a professional athlete,” she said. “I’ll be the last one to say, ‘Throw me a pity party.’ That’s the last thing I want. We’re doing what we love. We’re trying the best every single day. You know, we’re not perfect. We’re humans. Words hurt. It’s hard to overcome sometimes.”

Mental health has come to the forefront in recent years thanks in part to athletes like Murray, Thompson, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, former women’s tennis No. 1 Naomi Osaka, swimmer Michael Phelps, amongst many others, talking about and explaining their struggles. Their plights have been understood by some, but have also been met with rolling eyes by others who in most cases lack either the firsthand experience to relate, or simply an unwillingness to understand.

I was once one of those naysayers, but have over time come to understand the complexities of the issue that is very real, for a very significant amount of people.

Someone once told me that suicide was the most egregious form of selfishness. My response to them was that I believed that comment itself to exceed it, for to say as much had only their own feelings in mind, without concern for the what the victim of such was going through.

Imagine the pain one must feel to commit such an act. The loneliness and hopelessness in the moments leading up to it. The level of fear in what lies ahead. Then tell me how you can possibly relate if you’ve never been there yourself?

I’ve not, and to be honest hope never to feel that level of pain. But Murray did, and so many others like him do too, and it’s our job to understand that and to help them if we can — for everyone’s good.