![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6969838.1721358200!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
DEVELOPING Final night of the RNC: Donald Trump addresses the convention
The final day of the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee where Donald Trump is currently speaking.
Editor’s note: If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health there are a number of ways to get help, including by calling or texting Suicide Crisis Helpline at 9-8-8. A list of local crisis centres is also available here.
Grayson Murray's parents said Sunday their 30-year-old son took his own life, just one day after he withdrew from a PGA Tour event. The family asked for privacy and that people honor Murray by being kind to one another.
"If that becomes his legacy, we could ask for nothing else," Eric and Terry Murray said in a statement released by the PGA Tour.
Murray, a two-time PGA Tour winner, spoke in January after winning the Sony Open in Honolulu about turning the corner in his life, his golf and battles with alcoholism and mental health. He died Saturday morning.
Murray had to go through the Korn Ferry Tour to get his PGA Tour card back. And then he birdied the last hole at the Sony Open to get into a playoff, and made a 40-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole for an emotional win.
“It's not easy,” Murray said immediately after winning. "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.”
Murray tied for 43rd last week in the PGA Championship, which enabled him to hold his position among the top 60 to earn a spot in the U.S. Open next month at Pinehurst No. 2 in his native North Carolina.
He shot 68 in the opening round at Colonial. The next round, he was five over and coming off three straight bogeys when he withdrew citing an illness.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said he spoke with Murray's parents about halting play at Colonial and they insisted the golf tournament continue.
Monahan flew to Fort Worth, Texas, to be with players. Many of them wore black-and-red pins on their caps in honor of Murray. Those are the colors of the Carolina Hurricanes, his favorite NHL team.
"We have spent the last 24 hours trying to come to terms with the fact that our son is gone. It's surreal that we not only have to admit it to ourselves, but that we also have to acknowledge it to the world. It's a nightmare," his parents shared in their statement.
"We have so many questions that have no answers. But one. Was Grayson loved? The answer is yes. By us, his brother Cameron, his sister Erica, all of his extended family, by his friends, by his fellow players and -- it seems -- by many of you who are reading this. He was loved and he will be missed.
"Life wasn't always easy for Grayson, and although he took his own life, we know he rests peacefully now."
Grayson Murray holds the trophy after winning the 2024 Sony Open. (Matt York/AP Photo)
Grayson was a raw talent after taking up golf at age 8. He won his age division three straight years at the prestigious Junior World Championship in San Diego. But he struggled to fit in at college, going to Wake Forest, East Carolina and then Arizona State.
His first coach was Ted Kiegel in North Carolina, who like so many others was devastated.
“Words cannot express the tragedy of this moment,” Kiegel said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. “Grayson came from something that was ordinary and made it EXTRAORDINARY. ... He burned bright for the 30 years he gave us.”
Murray won as a 22-year-old rookie at the Barbasol Championship in Kentucky, and frustration began to set in as he didn't improve as quickly as others whom he routinely beat as amateurs.
He was always open about depression and anxiety, and his bouts with alcohol. When he won on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, he talked about his parents having “been through hell and back basically for the last six years for me fighting some mental stuff.”
“Everyone has their battles,” Murray said a year ago. “Sometimes people are able to hide them and function, and sometimes you're not. I think our society now is getting better about accepting that it's OK to not be OK. I've embraced that mentality. I'm not ashamed that I go through depression and anxiety.”
He also used social media to reach out to others dealing with similar issues in a sport where losing takes place far more than winning.
Murray said after he won the Sony Open that he often felt like a failure. He had gone six years from winning on the PGA Tour as a rookie to winning on the Korn Ferry Tour as he worked his way back up to the big leagues.
“I just thought I was a failure. I always looked at myself as a failure. I thought I had a lot of talent that was just a waste of talent,” he said in Honolulu. “It was a bad place, but like I said, you have to have courage. You have to have the willingness to keep going. Lo and behold, that’s what I did, and I’m here, and I’m so blessed and I’m thankful.”
He saw that Sony Open victory — which got him into the Masters for the first time — as the start of a new chapter. He said he had become a Christian and was engaged to Christina Ritchie. He said in January the wedding had been planned for late April.
“My story is not finished. I think it’s just beginning,” Murray said in Hawaii. “I hope I can inspire a lot of people going forward that have their own issues.”
The final day of the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee where Donald Trump is currently speaking.
Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan has announced he will not run in the next federal election, and will be quitting his cabinet position Friday.
An Ontario Provincial Police sergeant with 26 years of experience has been charged with impaired driving in Cochrane.
Donald Trump, sombre and bandaged, accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in a speech where he described how he felt during an assassination attempt that could have ended his life.
U.S. President Joe Biden is taking calls to step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate seriously and multiple Democratic officials think an exit is a matter of time, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
A three-year-old boy who was reported missing from a resort near Walt Disney World in central Florida early Thursday was found dead in a body of water on the resort's grounds several hours later, the sheriff's office said.
A B.C. woman has been ordered to repay her ex for a ticket to Coldplay's 2023 concert in Vancouver – in a small claims decision that highlights the distinction between gifts and loans under Canadian law.
Two people died and a third was seriously injured in a fiery plane crash in Tofino, B.C., on Thursday, according to authorities.
Researchers say they know the 'Big One' is coming, but when should we expect it? Scientists say predicting when a megathrust earthquake will occur is a guessing game.
A donated clawfoot bathtub has become the preferred lounging spot for a pair of B.C. grizzly bears, who have been taking turns relaxing and reclining in it – with minimal sibling squabbling – for the past year.
A pair of cemetery investigators are cleaning and preserving as many gravestones they have permission to work on, as they conduct their research and document gravestones.
After more than three years, a B.C. woman has been reunited with a lost family heirloom.
One of Edmonton’s main contributors to Google Street View is a man who dresses up as an alien.
Nearly 10 years after it was first proposed, an interactive piece of public art is officially open in Vancouver's Hastings Park.
An event July 22 at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury will mark the 60th anniversary of the iconic Big Nickel, the largest coin in the world.
Cyclist Jagjeet Singh cruised through Montreal on Sunday morning as he rides across the country to raise money for a children's charity.
A rare ammonite fossil – about 75 million years old - has been discovered in eastern Saskatchewan.
Seven-year-old goalie Hudson Hardill is an unlikely Calgary Flames fan, being that he lives in Peterborough, Ont., and his dad Chris is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.