Masters 2026: Gary Woodland was asked about his PTSD. He had a lot to say
· Yahoo Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Gary Woodland tried his best to hold it together as he explained what was tearing him apart.
Visit umafrika.club for more information.
Woodland is at the Masters thanks to winning the Houston Open, a performance that can only be appreciated when knowing what came before it. Last month, Woodland told the world what he'd been living with. Not the version everyone had agreed to believe: the brain surgery survivor, the comeback, the feel-good story that galleries cheered when they spotted him walking up the fairway. The real one. He had reached his limit on a specific kind of exhaustion. The exhaustion of pretending. He was, in his words, dying inside.
For more than a year he had been carrying something the leaderboard couldn't see. The formal diagnosis had come about a year earlier: post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition most commonly associated with combat veterans, first responders, survivors of violence.RELATED: Gary Woodland didn't beat PTSD. He just refused to let it win On Tuesday at Augusta National, a visibly emotional Woodland went deep explaining the battle he has been fighting.
“It's given me purpose, golf has, for sure,” Woodland said. “Golf has given me something a lot more to fight for than just myself and my family. I love being out here. I love the guys. I love competing. And the thought of losing that is hard.
"There's been times where I didn't know if it was -- if I was going to be able to do it, but I was going to fight and give it everything I had … I fought hard earlier this year with some struggles, and that's hard, that's a hard pill to swallow that this thing could be taken away from me for something that's out of my control.
“Houston was a big step in the right direction, just from a confidence standpoint, that even with hard days, I can still compete.”
Woodland manages hypervigilance; essentially when strangers approach it sends his body into crisis. This would happen during tournament rounds, including during his win in Houston. The protocols the PGA Tour helped put in place like managing the crowds and keeping people from approaching have helped and he now has a security team in place.
Still, every moment for Woodland has the potential to bring new danger.
“The one thing I know is having this brain tumor and having PTSD, it doesn't matter if I win or lose. It doesn't care. I had a tough time last week battling this stuff. A lot of stimulation comes with winning, stuff I hadn't seen in a long time.
"It's a big week for me this week. The fans are very close on the tee boxes. There's a lot going on. There's probably not a safer golf tournament in the world, so I'm happy for that, but it's still a battle in my head if I'm safe or not. That's a tough pill to swallow.
“I'm emotional from the standpoint I know how close I probably was to never being back here, and I'm very proud of myself for earning my way back.”
As Woodland explained, part of the reason he went public with his battle is to ease things for himself. He could no longer put forth the energy to be something that people wanted him to be.
“I was struggling to say no. I don't like to say no,” Woodland said. “I like to help people. I like to do everything I can.
“I'm at a point where it's hard for me to do most weeks, and I need to say no. The doctors are pushing me and pushing me I can't do everything I used to do from an energy standpoint. When I say no, I feel horrible. I see the disappointment in people's eyes. And they're like, well, then maybe it is time to come out because now people will know why you're saying no.
“Doing that for myself, that was the hardest part because it was a selfless act I would say I was doing. But the response and the messages I've got from people saying that it's helped them is not what I expected. It just shows that everybody is going through something. Everybody's battling something. Whether it's way bigger or way less, it doesn't matter what you're battling. To you it's important.”
Woodland went on to say, while his U.S. Open victory was the biggest achievement from a golf standpoint, he hopes what happened in Texas has a bigger impact.
“I hope somebody that's struggling with something sees this guy out here fighting every day and still living his dreams, and then they want to get up there and fight and live their dream too,” Woodland said.