Gary Woodland Just Won the Houston Open. Three Years Ago, Doctors Cut a Baseball-Sized Hole in His Skull.
Gary Woodland Just Won the Houston Open. Three Years Ago, Doctors Cut a Baseball-Sized Hole in His Skull.
Gary Woodland shot a final-round 67 at Memorial Park Golf Course on Sunday to win the Texas Children’s Houston Open at 21-under par, finishing five strokes clear of Nicolai Højgaard. It was his fifth career PGA Tour victory. His first in nearly seven years.
The last time Woodland won a golf tournament was June 16, 2019, when he lifted the U.S. Open trophy at Pebble Beach.
Everything that happened between then and now is what makes this week in Houston one of the most remarkable stories in recent golf history.
The Surgery
In May 2023, Gary Woodland started experiencing symptoms that no amount of physical conditioning could explain. Overwhelming fear. Constant anxiety. A consuming terror that he was going to die.
At the Memorial Tournament that June, he woke up in his hotel room and clung to the mattress for an hour, convinced that if he let go, he would fall to his death. Nighttime brought spasms, tremors in his hands, chills, and an appetite that disappeared entirely.
An MRI revealed the cause. A lesion was growing on his brain, pressing directly on the area that controls fear and anxiety. It was benign, but it was altering his reality in ways that made daily life feel unbearable.
In September 2023, Woodland underwent a craniotomy. Surgeons cut a baseball-sized hole in the side of his head and removed as much of the lesion as they could. They were able to get roughly half of it because the growth was pressing against the optic tract of his left eye. They cut off the blood supply to what remained and hoped it would not grow back.
There was a real chance Woodland would wake up paralyzed on his left side.
He spent two nights in the ICU. He walked out of the hospital under his own power. Two days after that, he was putting again.
The Long Road Back
Woodland returned to the PGA Tour in January 2024 at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He could play, but he was far from the player he had been. Standing over putts, he would lose focus mid-stroke. He would forget which club he was holding during his pre-shot routine.
In 26 starts during the 2024 season, he managed three top-25 finishes. His best result was a tie for ninth at the Shriners Children’s Open. For a guy who had won the U.S. Open five years earlier, it was a grind just to keep his card.
In February 2025, the PGA Tour awarded Woodland the Courage Award, recognizing his perseverance in the face of extraordinary adversity. He was only the seventh player to receive the honor.
But the hardest part of Woodland’s recovery was something he had been hiding from almost everyone.
The PTSD
On March 9, 2026, Woodland sat down with Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard for an interview that would change the trajectory of his year. He revealed that roughly a year earlier, he had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the brain surgery.
The symptoms were severe. He described being hypervigilant on the course, startled by walking scorers getting too close. After one incident, his eyesight went blurry and he couldn’t remember what he was doing. He spent the rest of that round going into every bathroom he could find just to cry where nobody could see him.
There were days when he broke down in the scoring trailer after rounds. Days when he sprinted to his car in the parking lot just to hide it.
Woodland said he had felt like he was living a lie. That he was spending so much energy pretending to be fine that he had nothing left for the actual golf.
After the interview aired, Woodland said it felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off his back.
Three weeks later, he showed up at Memorial Park.
The Houston Open
Woodland opened with a 64 on Thursday. He followed it with a 63 on Friday to build a three-shot lead through 36 holes. On Saturday, he shot another 65, but Højgaard fired a 63 of his own to cut the lead to a single stroke heading into Sunday.
By Sunday, the question was whether the pressure of a one-shot lead would overwhelm a player who had spent two years hiding tears between shots.
It did not.
Woodland closed with a 67 to finish at 259, a tournament record. Five strokes clear of the field. Wire to wire.
It was his first victory since the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where he finished 13-under to beat Brooks Koepka by three.
Gary Woodland just hit 196 ball speed on the golf course. 360 yard drive.
Thats 5MPH faster than Bryson’s “Beefcake” year average when he added 40 pounds to get longer.
Gary is doing this at 42 without looking noticeably different than he ever has.pic.twitter.com/I9Aqi220KK
— Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) March 29, 2026
What a moment for Gary Woodland ❤️
⛳️ In 2023, Woodland had brain surgery to remove a lesion pressing on his brain
⛳️ Earlier this year, he revealed he was diagnosed with PTSD about a year ago
⛳️ Today, he won the Texas Children’s Houston Open for his first win since the 2019… pic.twitter.com/4OEjYhPRj4— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 29, 2026
Full Circle
The career arc of Gary Woodland is not a straight line. He was a basketball player first, a kid from Topeka, Kansas, who helped Shawnee Heights High School win state basketball titles in 2000 and 2002. He played a season of Division II basketball at Washburn University before an exhibition game against Kansas, where he found himself guarding Kirk Hinrich, made him realize he needed to find a different sport.
He transferred to Kansas, picked up golf seriously, and turned pro in 2007.
His first PGA Tour win came in 2011 at the Transitions Championship. Then the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2013. The Phoenix Open in 2018. The U.S. Open in 2019, where he drew worldwide attention partly for his friendship with Amy Bockerstette, a Special Olympics golfer with Down syndrome whose motto “I got this” became a rallying cry during that magical week at Pebble Beach.
And now Houston in 2026. At 41 years old. With titanium plates and screws holding his skull together and a diagnosis of PTSD that he only felt comfortable sharing with the world three weeks ago.
Woodland said it himself after the final round. Telling the truth about what he had been going through freed him up to play the kind of golf he always knew he still had.
The thousand pounds came off. And everything underneath it was still there.
A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
