Gary Woodland thought he was dying: 'Every day it was a new way of death' | D'Angelo

Awakened by sudden jolts. Tremors. Hands shaking uncontrollably. Loss of appetite. Chills. Lack of energy.

Gary Woodland felt all these symptoms last April, a few weeks after the Masters. Not to mention the most terrifying:

Anxiety and the fear of dying.

Tests were scheduled. After ruling out Parkinson's disease, Woodland was scheduled for an MRI.

What it showed was a lesion pushing on the part of his brain that controls fear and anxiety. While pathology reports all suggested this growth was benign, that did not calm Woodland, not when his brain was telling him something else.

And all Woodland could think about was dying.

"I don't know how to explain it besides it was absolutely horrible," Woodland said between rounds at the recent Genesis Invitational. "I was working with doctors, I was talking to psychologists and everyone kept telling me I was OK. But I had this tumor in my head pushing on the part of my brain that controls fear and anxiety. So it didn't matter what anybody told me I was still dealing with, it was a daily experience.

"Every day it was a new way of dying, new way of death," he added. "The jolting in the middle of the night scared the heck out of me."

Jumping out of bed with fear 'mostly around death'

Gary Woodland is 39 years old. He is as friendly as any player on the PGA Tour, respectful of everyone he meets, and very popular among his peers. And he has worked hard to reach the pinnacle of his profession.

Woodland has earned more than $33.5 million on the PGA Tour, a career that includes winning the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. He and his wife, Gabby, have three children, including twin daughters. They live in Delray Beach, although Gary's heart remains in his native Kansas and with his beloved Kansas Jayhawks. Gary attended the University of Kansas before turning pro in 2007.

That life took a very scary, unpredictable turn last year with Woodland's diagnosis. But even before seeking answers, he managed to play 10 PGA Tour events before his season ended in early August.

One month later, Woodland was preparing for a very complicated surgery in which nothing was guaranteed.

"I'm 39 years old," Woodland said. "To live a life one way and all of a sudden you're not yourself, you have no control. I've worked hard with performance coaches and psychologists since I was 16 years old. You think you can overcome stuff. I couldn't overcome this."

Woodland was on the putting green at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles after playing through the weekend for the first time since returning in January. Woodland made the cut at Genesis while playing with Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas, although Woods withdrew after six holes that Friday because of illness.

Woodland shot a 70 Saturday, his caddie, Brennan Little, telling him this was his three best days since returning. Woodland agreed. After his round, in which Gabby was with him for every step, he talked about fear, anxiety, seizures and mortality.

Woodland lifted his cap to point out where doctors drilled a hole the size of a baseball into his skull. He traced the incision line with his finger from the middle of his forehead along his hairline to the bottom of his ear. A cut that required 30 staples to close.

And this wasn't the first time Woodland told his story. He described his ordeal in much greater detail in Honolulu at the Sony Open, his first tournament since the Sept. 18 surgery.

"We haven't had enough conversation about what he's gone through and how difficult life was for Gary, how scary each and every moment is as he's afraid of dying, and the anxiety of that and to have a surgery and remove a tumor out of his brain and to come back and play the tour," Woods said the day before the Genesis started. Woods was the one who extended the invitation to Woodland to play in the event he hosts.

"That's an unbelievable story. I think that we should applaud him for what he's been able to overcome."

The ordeal was terrifying. The jolts were seizures that were controlled for a while by medication. But that resulted in memory loss. Despite those side effects, including moodiness, loss of energy and focus, Woodland continued to enter tournaments, saying it was a distraction.

"I didn't want to be alone," said Woodland, who had Gabby by his side as much as possible when he traveled. "Sleeping was the worst part because I was jolting, jumping out of bed with fear, mostly around death."

Gabby respectfully declined an interview request, saying it was difficult to talk about.

The week of the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, was especially frightening. Woodland, who has a fear of heights, remembers clutching the side of the bed in the middle of the night in fear of falling and dying. This lasted about an hour.

Woodland arrived the next day at Muirfield Village Golf Club and shot a 75 before a second-round 68 allowed him to make the cut.

"To have to get up and play the next day was the only thing that … allowed me a little break for a little bit of time," he said. "I didn't have the energy to do it seven days a week, but it did give me a little bit of a break."

That relief from the meds was temporary. The lesion continued to grow and surgery was recommended. And Woodland knew it was time. He started forgetting which club he was hitting. He would be lining up putts and thinking, "This is taking too long." He was losing focus and energy.

And a biopsy was too risky. The plan was to remove as much of the lesion as they could without causing permanent damage. The growth was touching Woodland's optic tract and the danger was losing his eyesight if they attempted to remove it all.

That plan would have changed had they found it was cancerous.

That uncertainty was adding to Woodland's anxiety.

"I'm a very optimistic person and to live very pessimistic every day was absolutely horrible," Woodland said.

Thankfulness, love replace fear, anxiety

After waking and learning the lesion was benign and the operation was successful, the fear subsided, even knowing part of the growth remained.

"It was very emotional because I had gone 4½ months of every day really thinking I was going to die," he said. "The doctors kept telling me I was OK, but this thing pushing on my brain, fear and anxiety … didn't matter if I was driving a car, on an airplane, I thought everything was going to kill me.

"You can imagine leading up to surgery how I felt going into having my head cut open and operated on. The fear going into that was awful."

Fear and anxiety were replaced with thankfulness and love. Woodland had his eyesight and use of the left side of his body — the risk of paralysis was one of the biggest concerns entering surgery. Then came rehab and getting back to what he does best.

Golf.

The MRIs of Woodland's head still are not clean because of the portion of the lesion that was not removed. But with encouraging pathology reports and the doctors' confidence it will not grow after the blood supply to the lesion was cut off, Woodland is, for the most part, worry-free.

Woodland's next step is to get off all the meds. He's hoping an April 1 checkup brings that good news.

As for golf, Woodland could not put a percentage on where his game was compared with his peak, but believes it is trending in the right direction. "The game is coming. I just need reps each day," he says. Those reps will continue this week at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches. Woodland is making his 10th start at the event formerly known as the Honda Classic.

More: Cognizant final field a significant upgrade with more than double top 50 golfers from last year

"I got a whole new perspective on life, a whole new appreciation for this," he said, spreading his arms as he looked around at the Riviera Country Club.

"I think we take a lot of this for granted sometimes. And it's easy to do. We're playing for a lot of money. We're traveling to amazing places. And you don't realize how good you really have it until it's taken away from you.

"I love sports. I love playing basketball and baseball. Golf was just something I was good at. I didn't realize how much I loved it until the last eight months. And I love it out here. And I think when I get fully back, I think I'll play a lot better because I'm just a lot more appreciative."

Tom D'Angelo is a sports columnist and reporter at The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @tomdangelo44.

Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches

Thursday-Sunday, PGA National, Palm Beach Gardens

TV: Golf Channel and NBC

Tickets: thecognizantclassic.com

2023 champion: Chris Kirk

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Gary Woodland more appreciative of golf, life after brain surgery to remove lesion