‘Now I have hope:’ How Gary Woodland got his life back after brain-tumor battle

Gary Woodland’s story is one of courage.

The 2019 U.S. Open champion has been open about the brain tumor he had removed in 2023 and his difficult journey back since. Woodland let the Netflix cameras in last year for Season 3 of “Full Swing” and has continued to openly discuss the battles he is facing as he works to rediscover his form on the course and find a new normal off of it.

Before the 2025 Sony Open, Woodland described how scary his 2024 season was as he tried to fight through the headaches and “overstimulation” that came with playing tournament golf.

“Last year was one of the hardest years of my life from the standpoint everything was new,” Woodland said at the Sony. “I was very thankful to be back in this seat last year, less than four months from surgery, but everything was new. It was like I was a rookie again. I didn’t know what to expect. There were days waking up, I didn’t know if I was going to feel good. 

“I didn’t know how I was going to be, going back to places where the year before — talk about PTSD, I’m driving through places where, yeah, I pulled over there and had to call my wife crying because I thought I was going to die. I come back to a hotel, I’m like, I had multiple seizures in this bed. Everything was new, and it was hard.”

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But Woodland and his wife Gabby worked to find solutions to help him manage things and continue to play on the PGA Tour. Those answers included breathing techniques and medication to help slow his brain down when the stimulation gets too high.

That has Woodland feeling optimistic about his game early in 2025. He has posted three top-25 finishes in four events and is managing his new normal well.

“At the end of the day, I’m fighting,” Woodland said Wednesday at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches after receiving the PGA Tour’s Courage Award. “The last thing I’m going to let this do is let this thing in my head stop my dreams, and that’s why I fight every day. I want to be there for my kids and my family, but I want to chase my dreams, too. I’ve got a lot of dreams out here.

“I’m starting to understand what I need to do every day to function in life, but the things I’m doing to help with my brain are also helping me play golf, and I’m knocking on the door. I know my game is close. It’s coming, and I’m going to keep knocking on that door until I bust through, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Woodland is the seventh player to receive the Courage Award, which is given “to a person who, through courage and perseverance, has overcome extraordinary adversity, such as personal tragedy or debilitating injury or illness, to make a significant and meaningful contribution to the game of golf.”

On Wednesday, Woodland continued to pull back the curtain on a challenging 2024 and how he and his wife navigated everything so that he could be in a space to compete at the highest level.

“The unknown is what’s so scary,” Woodland said. “As athletes, especially playing an individual sport, for the most part we’re all control freaks. We like to control everything around us. Being out of control — I had no control of what’s going on with my brain. The hard thing is, and this is an experience that my family and everyone, we’ve had to deal with, is physically I look normal. I look fine. But this thing that I battle in my head tells me every day that I’m not.”

Woodland admits he probably shouldn’t have played in 2024. He could have taken a medical exemption and returned in 2025, but golf is what he loves and he is “proud” that he pushed through last season even if he shouldn’t have.

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“But I learned so much,” Woodland said. “If I wouldn’t have played last year, there’s no way I would be sitting here today as optimistic about my game as I am because I understood what hurts me and what doesn’t. I understand what I have to do now before I get out of bed, the breath work and everything I have to do to give myself the endurance to withstand what I’m going to face that day.

“I didn’t know that last year. The stimulation of playing — there’s a lot that goes into just showing up and playing golf tournaments. We’ve got a lot of things to do each week. It’s not just showing up and playing Thursday through Sunday. You play multiple weeks. You throw major championships in there. You throw tournaments in there with a lot of stimulation — my brain couldn’t handle it. I didn’t understand that. The scary part for me was, is this what it’s going to be like the rest of my life?”

Woodland credits Gabby for allowing him to vent and complain as he struggled in 2024. But toward the end of the season, he said, Gabby would listen to the vent session and then ask how they would fix it. What was the solution?

That led to the Woodlands going around the country to different specialists until they found a way for Gary to calm his brain, settle his nervous system and live the life he wants.

“Now I have hope,” Woodland said. “Every day I get up, I know I have a lot of work ahead of me that day, but I know I can function. I know I can spend time with my kids now. I don’t have to leave the room when my kids get excited. I’m getting my life back.”