Murray wins Sony Open in a playoff

Grayson Murray is a PGA Tour winner again and feels better than ever about his future. The gold trophy he won Sunday at the Sony Open in Honolulu with a 40-foot birdie putt in a playoff is only a small reason for that.

Murray has been sober for eight months, tired of alcohol fueling his arrogance in public and making him feel like a failure for wasting talent in private. He feels renewed through Christianity and is getting married in April to a woman that became a big part of a small support group.

“My story is not finished. I think it’s just beginning,” Murray said. “I hope I can inspire a lot of people going forward that have their own issues.”

Murray’s wedge into a breeze to a back pin to 3 feet gave him a birdie on the par-5 18th for a 3under-par 67 and allowed him to join a threeway playoff with Keegan Bradley and Byeong Hun An. And then he buried a birdie putt from just inside 40 feet with An facing a 4-foot birdie.

Bradley missed from 18 feet. An’s short putt grazed the lip. Murray had another PGA Tour title, the other coming more than six years ago at an opposite-field event when he was a rookie.

Murray, who earned his way back to the PGA Tour with two wins on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, now can bank on his first trip to the Masters in April and a spot in the seven remaining signature events with their $20 million purses.

“I knew today was not going to change my life,” he said. “But it did change my career.”

An hit a 3-iron to just inside 15 feet on the 18th in regulation, the best shot of the day on the closing hole, and two-putted for birdie an a 64 to be the first to post 17-under 263. In the playoff, he hit a superb pitch to 4 feet, only to miss.

Bradley broke away from a five-way tie for the lead with a 20-foot birdie on the 15th, but he had to settle for pars the rest of the way. In the playoff, the New England native was in the best position in the fairway. But he pulled his fairway metal into the grandstand, chipped only to 18 feet, and missed after Murray had made birdie.

“I played good enough to win. But sometimes it’s just not quite good enough, and that was one of these weeks,” said Bradley, who called it one of the toughest losses of his career.

Russell Henley (63) and Carl Yuan (63) finished a shot back.

European — Tommy Fleetwood benefited from two huge errors on the back nine from Rory McIlroy and produced his own strong finish to win the Dubai Invitational after a back-and-forth final-round duel in the United Arab Emirates.

McIlroy had already three-putted from 2 feet at No. 14 by the time he reached the 18th tee with a one-shot lead over Fleetwood and pulled his drive into the water. Fleetwood followed that by driving into the middle of the fairway and sent his approach to 16 feet, well inside McIlroy after the world No. 2 had to take a drop. McIlroy missed his winding putt up the hill and Fleetwood, who lives in Dubai, made his to shoot 67 for 19-under 265, securing a first win since November 2022.

He was a stroke clear of McIlroy (67), who tied for second place with Thriston Lawrence (64) in the first European Tour event of 2024.