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Gary Woodland on Tuesday during his Players Championship practice round.Getty Images<\/p>\n
Gary Woodland says he has been diagnosed with PTSD following a brain procedure in 2023 and that doctors have told him that \u201cin an ideal world,\u201d the 2019 U.S. Open winner probably shouldn\u2019t be playing.<\/p>\n
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The revelations came via an emotional interview with Golf Channel\u2019s Rex Hoggard, which was released Monday, three days before the start of the Players Championship<\/a>, where Woodland is scheduled to make his sixth start of the season. It\u2019ll also mark a year, he said, since being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following an operation<\/a> that removed part of a lesion attached to his brain that had led to seizures and thoughts of fear.<\/p>\n In the interview with Hoggard, which you can watch in full here<\/a>, Woodland said that he continued to battle symptoms created by the lesion, though, and that he chose to open up now because he didn\u2019t want to \u201cwaste energy anymore hiding this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m blessed with a lot of support out here,\u201d the 41-year-old from Kansas said. \u201cThe Tour and everyone\u2019s just been amazing. Every week I come out, and everyone\u2019s so excited and happy that I\u2019m back. And I hear that every week \u2014 \u2018It\u2019s so nice to see you past this, it\u2019s so nice to see you 100 percent.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I appreciate that love and support, but inside I feel like I\u2019m dying and I feel like I\u2019m living a lie and that I don\u2019t want to waste energy on that anymore. I want to focus my energy on me and my recovery, my dreams out here, my family. I don\u2019t want to waste energy hiding this.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Below are three other takeaways from the interview:<\/p>\n Gary Woodland\u2019s moment in Napa\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Asked how his fear manifested itself on the course, Woodland described a moment at last year\u2019s Procore Championship<\/a>, which was doubling as a tune-up for the Ryder Cup for the U.S. team. Woodland, an American vice captain, was playing in the event, and on the second day, he said he became \u201cstartled\u201d by his group\u2019s walking scorer.<\/p>\n \u201cI pulled Butchie, my caddie [Brennan Little], said. \u2018Butch, this stuff\u2019s hitting me, man. You can\u2019t let anybody get behind me,\u2019\u201d Woodland said in the interview. \u201cAnd next thing you know, I couldn\u2019t remember what I was doing. My eyesight started to get blurry. And the hole later, I said, \u2018Butch, I can\u2019t handle it,\u2019 and I started bawling, middle of the fairway. It was my turn to hit, I couldn\u2019t hit, and Butch was like, \u2018GW, let\u2019s go in.\u2019 I said, \u2018No, man, I\u2019m here for these guys, I can\u2019t leave them out here in a twosome. I don\u2019t want to. I want to fight. I want to get through this.\u2019<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cHe gave me sunglasses to hide it. I went in every bathroom to cry the rest of the day. When I got done, I got in my car and got out of there. I just can\u2019t hide it anymore. Days when it\u2019s tough, I\u2019m crying in the scoring trailer, running to my car when I get done just to hide it, just because I\u2019m scared. I don\u2019t want to live that way anymore. If I\u2019m feeling something, I want to let it out. I want to let it go because I am getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n Since that event, Woodland said he\u2019s talked with the PGA Tour and that protocols have been put in place where he said he feels safe.\u201d Woodland also said the Ryder Cup, played two weeks after the Procore \u201cwas probably the safest I\u2019ve felt through this whole journey because I was with the guys and I didn\u2019t have to hide it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve helped me,\u201d Woodland said, \u201cmore than I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n Gary Woodland\u2019s talk at the WM Phoenix Open\u00a0<\/p>\n News <\/a><\/p>\n 2026 Players Championship tee marker pictured at TPC Sawgrass.<\/p>\n Hoggard asked Woodland if he believed he could \u201coutwork\u201d his situation \u2014 and Woodland said no. He then described a moment last month at the WM Phoenix Open<\/a>, where he was paired with a security officer who told him on the tournament\u2019s final day that he was a military veteran who himself had battled PTSD.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he said being with me that week brought back a lot of memories of himself, and he could see my brain analyzing, searching for threats the whole time while I was playing,\u201d Woodland said in the interview.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I wasn\u2019t aware of that.\u201d<\/p>\n The security officer, Woodland said, then asked if he could give some advice.<\/p>\n \u201cI said please, please,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cAnd he told me a couple of things. He said this is going to take time. And he said, take every day for what it\u2019s worth. He said if you have a good day, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re over this. And if you have a bad day, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re stuck in this forever. But put your head on your pillow every night and be proud that you got through today.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then the second thing is, he said I don\u2019t care how strong you think you are, you can\u2019t do this on your own. And I needed to hear that because there\u2019s been times where I\u2019ve strung days together where I thought I was past this, and there\u2019s been days where I\u2019ve had bad days in a row, and I thought I was never getting out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m going to play\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Woodland said in the interview that doctors have told him that \u201cin an ideal world,\u201d he\u2019s probably not playing and that he\u2019s probably not \u201cin a stressful, overstimulating environment.\u201d To that, though, he said he says this:<\/p>\n \u201cMy response was, in an ideal world, I don\u2019t have this. This is my dream and this is what I\u2019m going to do, and no matter how hard it is, I\u2019m going to play.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Woodland also said that there was a reason behind doing the interview.<\/p>\n He said he hoped it would help him.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to live my dreams and I want to be successful out here, but I want to help people, too, but I realize now I got to help myself first.\u201d<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: To watch the complete Golf Channel interview with Woodland, please click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post \u2018I feel like I\u2019m living a lie’: Gary Woodland opens up on PTSD fight<\/a> appeared first on Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gary Woodland on Tuesday during his Players Championship practice round.Getty Images Gary Woodland says he has been diagnosed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[164517,163,85,46,522,523,164518],"class_list":["post-334737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-gary-woodland","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-rex-hoggard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2026](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/88fef709f44d0b42c7b8cb64026534fd.jpeg\"\/)
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