How a serious health scare changed Gary Woodland's perspective on golf and life

(CNN) — When American golfer Gary Woodland won the US Open tournament in 2019, he was on top of the world. Just four years later, he quite literally thought his world was going to end.

“It was hell,” he told CNN Sports at The Players Championship in Florida. “Every situation, from driving in a car to getting on an airplane to walking down the street. Everything was end-of-the-world death for me.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Woodland found himself crippled by anxiety and the fear of dying; he was struggling to focus, and his energy was ebbing away. His doctors discovered that a benign lesion was growing on his brain, inducing seizures and pressuring his amygdala, which specifically triggers fear and anxiety responses.

Somehow, Woodland was able to carry on playing after he was first woken up with a jolt by unfounded fears at the Mexico Open in April, remarkably making eight cuts in his next 10 tournaments. Medication was helping, but the symptoms were getting worse, and his condition was taking a steep toll on his family life.

“It was tough on my wife, my three little kids,” he recalled. “When they got excited, I had to leave the room because my brain couldn’t handle the stimulation. They don’t understand why I have to go lay in the bed in a dark room to slow everything down. That was devastating for me.”

He added, “My wife had to make sure I was OK every day and she had to raise them. On top of that, I’m still trying to play golf. It was tough.”

It’s clear from observing the pain on his face that recalling his experience is difficult for Woodland, and his suffering ultimately reached a point of no return.

“It got to be so much that we couldn’t control it, and that’s when surgery was the next option,” he said.

In August 2023, Woodland announced his condition to the golf media, and he underwent surgery the next month. Doctors performed a craniotomy, cutting a hole the size of a baseball in the left side of his head, removing as much of the growth as they could. A titanium plate now covers the hole.

He says the relief was immediate, but he never took anything for granted. In the days leading up to the procedure, he sat down to write some letters to his wife, Gabby, and three young children.

“It was brutal. I reached out to a friend who’s in the military who’s been deployed multiple times and asked how he dealt with going into battle and the thought of death. He said one thing that’s really helped is to write letters to loved ones, just in case something happens,” he said.

‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life’

At the time, Woodland’s three children were all six years old and younger. He wrote his son Jaxson and his twin daughters Maddox and Lennox a letter that he hoped they would never have to read. For his girls, he tried not only to find the right words, but to make sure the word count was similar, he didn’t want them to feel as though their late father had favored one over the other.

“And then my son, he’s surrounded by girls. I’m the big guy in his life,” he said.

Woodland wanted to reassure Jaxson that he would always have help if he needed it.

“’Daddy’s got a big team around him. They’re your team now. There’s a lot of people that will be here for you,’” he said he wrote. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But it’s something I’m glad I did.”

Woodland hopes and believes that the worst of his experience is now behind him, but it will be impossible for him to forget it. His doctors are keeping an eye on what remains of the lesion with regular MRI scans, and he’s had to develop coping mechanisms because, as he says, “I’ve still got battles every day.”

He now relies on yoga and breath work to calm himself down and he’s learned that the sense of fear that might still creep up on him is only imagined.

“I have things to do that can help me live the life that I want to live again. it’s a lot more exciting now than it was a couple years ago,” he said.

‘I’m very fortunate to be out here’

Over the last three years, many of the PGA Tour’s stars have been featured in the Netflix show “Full Swing.” Because of his condition, Woodland didn’t make his debut until episode six of the third season.

In sharp contrast with the typically glamorous life of a professional golfer, it’s a deeply intimate portrayal of the Woodlands’ personal struggle.

“My kids loved the camera!” he joked. “But it was extremely difficult for my wife and I. But we did it to help somebody. I am blessed with the amazing amount of support around me, and it pains me to think that somebody out there doesn’t have that much support. Whether it’s mental, whether it’s physical, whether it’s health, we’re all battling something. Hopefully, someone can see me and realize they’re not alone in their journey.”

Just two days after his surgery, Woodland was putting in his dining room at home. Three days later, his father drove him to the driving range and less than four months after that he was teeing it up at the Sony Open in Hawaii. The physical wounds healed quickly, but he didn’t fully appreciate that there would be more to his recovery than that.

“From a stimulation point, I didn’t understand how difficult it was going to be, there’s a lot more that goes into a golf tournament than just showing up playing four rounds of golf,” he said.

In 2024, he missed the cut in 40% of the tournaments he played and only once did he manage a top-10 finish.

This year, however, he’s getting his mojo back and he’s fallen in love with a game that he’d always taken for granted.

“I just happened to be blessed with a lot of talent,” he explained. “When this game was almost taken away from me, I realized how much I love not only the golf, but the world we live in. The golf world supported me like we’re family. I’m very fortunate to be out here.”

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