U.S. Open champ Gary Woodland grateful for chance to golf again - ESPN

Gary Woodland arrived at the Sony Open and had a good night of sleep, meaning he didn't jump out of bed and grab the side of the mattress to make sure he wasn't falling out of the sky to his death.

He flew to Hawaii without worrying the overhead bin would crash down and kill him.

Fear and anxiety were unfamiliar terms to this rock-chalk solid, three-sport star from Kansas, the 2019 U.S. Open champion whose only fear was not living up to his high standards.

All that changed the last week in April, when Woodland was at the Mexico Open and began to experience symptoms such as being jolted awake by unfounded fears, tremors in his hands, chills and low energy.

When he asked his doctor for something to calm the anxiety, that led to an MRI to rule out Parkinson's disease. Instead, it revealed a lesion on his brain on a tract that caused fear.

«That was the one that scared me the most,» Woodland said Tuesday of his symptoms. «I'm a very optimistic person. I believe good things will happen. I was very fear-driven every day, mostly around death.»

After undergoing surgery on a brain lesion, <a href=«https://twitter.com/GaryWoodland?ref_src=» https:>@GaryWoodland

sheds light on what he has been through over the past year. pic.twitter.com/FJG39nnmkP

Woodland, 39, played 10 tournaments with the symptoms, eight times on medication, seven times after the diagnosis. Remarkably, he made eight out of 10 cuts. But a summer of fear and medication gave way to the inevitable.

«The lesion in my brain sat on the part of my brain that controls fear and anxiety,» Woodland said. "[The specialist] is like, 'You're not going crazy. Everything you're experiencing is common and normal for where this thing is sitting in your brain.'"

Woodland had brain