The PGA Tour honored Gary Woodland with its Courage award on Wednesday, and it was perhaps no coincidence that the presentation at the 2025 Cognizant Classic happened the same day as Netflix’s release of the latest ‘Full Swing’ season.
Woodland, 40, is in the midst of reviving his golf career after having a baseball-sized lesion removed from his brain in September 2023. One ‘Full Swing’ episode filmed during the 2024 PGA Tour season offers the international Netflix audience a glimpse into the medical situation that had the 2019 U.S. Open champion fearing for his life, and the inspirational comeback attempt underway because of it.
Woodland returned to the PGA Tour at the 2024 Sony Open in Hawaii and began openly discussing what he went through and what he still had to overcome due to the brain-tumor surgery. He was emotional accepting the Courage award at a news conference in conjunction with the PGA Tour event in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida this week.-
‘It’s been a hard journey for me,’ Woodland said. ‘The last couple years have been hard and receiving this is a testament to the people around me because there’s no way I’d be back playing or sitting here today if it weren’t for them. It means everything for me to receive it but it really belongs to the people around me. It’s been hard for me to share my journey but I’ve done it for the sole purpose of trying to help people.’
The love and support I’ve had has been amazing,’ he added. ‘It pains me to think there’s someone out there going through something and doesn’t have that much support and hopefully they can see me and see my story and see I battle it every day, too.’
Gary Woodland’s brain tumor surgery featured on Netflix’s ‘Full Swing’
Woodland was experiencing symptoms like hand tremors and negative thoughts, and an April 2023 MRI revealed a tumor on the part of his brain that controls anxiety and fear. He continued to play through the end of the season before his surgery.
The ongoing headaches and ‘overstimulation’ he’s dealing with on and off the golf course with the help of his wife due to the brain surgery are spotlighted on Episode 6 of ‘Full Swing.’ Woodland is using medications and breathing techniques that he never needed before to control his brain during moments of high stimulation during a golf tournament.
Woodland also recounted the scary days before the lesion was removed, when he wrote letters to his wife and children in case the procedure didn’t go as planned. But there’s a clip of Woodland, a former college basketball player, walking out of the hospital after insisting on not using a wheelchair.
“I walked in this place,” he declared, “and I’m walking out.”
Gary Woodland PGA Tour comeback
Woodland, who has four career wins on the PGA Tour, appears closer to rounding back into form and managing his new normal in 2025 with three top-25 finishes in four starts heading into Thursday’s opening round at the Cognizant Classic. He has moved up from No. 200 to No. 174 in the world golf rankings since the end of 2024, when he had just one top-10 finish.
Woodland is the seventh player to receive the PGA Tour’s 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.”
Woodland said it would have ‘been easy’ to consider retirement in light of his situation and admits he might have come back too soon during the 2024 season. But he also learned better how to manage this new normal last year and emerged with a better appreciation for his career, life and friendships on the PGA Tour.
For that, Woodland also became one of the sport’s most heartwarming stories and ‘a constant inspiration to us all,’ PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said Wednesday.
‘I truly believe my best golf is ahead of me,’ Woodland told PGATour.com. ‘I believe I have a second chance at this. I understand that now. I don’t take a day for granted anymore. I also believe I have a bigger responsibility to tell my story to help people. I need to fight through the scar tissue of playing golf poorly the last couple years, but I believe I’m doing the right things, that the confidence will come back and I’ll be able to have a bigger and better career than I’ve experienced so far.’
Gary Woodland PGA Tour stats, earnings
4 PGA Tour wins
2019 U.S. Open champion
Career earnings: $39,730,265
Joined PGA Tour in 2009