{"id":45152,"date":"2026-03-30T01:59:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T05:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/emotional-woodland-seal-wins-first-victory-after-brain-surgery\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T01:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T05:59:16","slug":"emotional-woodland-seal-wins-first-victory-after-brain-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/emotional-woodland-seal-wins-first-victory-after-brain-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional woodland seal wins first victory after brain surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Texas Children&#8217;s Houston Open final round leaderboard<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>-twenty one <\/strong>G Woodland (USA); <strong>-16 <\/strong>N Hojgaard (The); <strong>-15 <\/strong>J Kiefer (USA), MW Lee (Australia). <strong>-14 <\/strong>S. Stevens (USA); <strong>-13 <\/strong>S Yelamaraju (Canada), J Day (Australia), J Knapp (USA), C Gotterup (USA)<\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p><strong>Others selected:<\/strong> <strong>-7 <\/strong>S Rowley (Ire), H Hall (Eng); <strong>-6 <\/strong>P Waring (English); <strong>-5 <\/strong>J. Smith (English); <strong>-4<\/strong> J. Parry (English); <strong>-3 <\/strong>M. Wallace (English); <strong>-2 <\/strong>D. Willett (English)<\/p>\n<p>complete leaderboard<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gary Woodland broke down in tears after winning the Houston Open, clinching his first championship in seven years.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Woodland underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor in September 2023 and revealed earlier this month that she has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since being diagnosed about a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>The American, who had not won a tournament since the 2019 U.S. Open, defeated Denmark&#8217;s Nikolaj Hojgaard by five strokes to win the PGA Tour tournament in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As he holed his final putt, Woodland, 41, spread his arms wide, looked up at the sky, and cried as he hugged his wife, Gabby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We play an individual sport, and today we weren&#8217;t alone,&#8221; Woodland said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have a lot of people behind me, including my team and my family. I want anyone who is struggling with something to look at me and not give up and keep fighting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Woodland finished at 21 under after an impressive final round of 67 at the par-70 Memorial Park Golf Course.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Another day has passed. I have to continue to heal and I&#8217;m going to keep fighting, but I&#8217;m proud of who I am today,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thank you to my family. I wouldn&#8217;t have been anywhere without them, but I couldn&#8217;t have done this without Gabby.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was hard for me, but it was even harder for her. I love her to death.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li\/>\n<li\/><\/ul>\n<figure class=\"content-figure\">\n<div class=\"content-image\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"lightbox-btn\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"lightbox-expand\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Image Lightbox\" class=\"lightbox-overlay\" aria-modal=\"true\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"fig-caption\">\n<p>Woodland wept as he hugged his wife Gabby after clinching victory (Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hodgegard, looking for his first PGA Tour win, shot an impressive 8-under 62 on Friday and a 7-under 63 on Saturday before Woodland took the lead by one stroke overnight.<\/p>\n<p>But the American showed remarkable composure and control with a superb front nine that included four birdies to emerge into a lead he would never relinquish.<\/p>\n<p>Huygaard also had two birdies in his first 10 holes, but had two bogeys and a double bogey to boost Woodland&#8217;s chances.<\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Dane made a birdie on the 14th hole, despite Woodland&#8217;s bogey card, to cut the gap to five shots, and added another birdie on the 16th hole to make it four shots.<\/p>\n<p>But Woodland matched him with a par on the 17th and made par at the end, but Huygaard dropped another shot.<\/p>\n<p>Woodland received a warm welcome from the crowd on the straight, which turned into enthusiastic applause and chants of &#8220;Gary, Gary&#8221; when he sank the winning putt.<\/p>\n<p>This is Woodland&#8217;s fifth PGA Tour win and will likely prepare him for his first major of the season at next month&#8217;s Masters.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about his chances at Augusta, he stressed that he still has some personal and mental issues to work on, but added, &#8220;My game is better than it&#8217;s ever been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p>American Johnny Keefer and Australia&#8217;s Min Woo Lee tied for third place at 15 under par, one stroke behind Hodggard.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on his accomplishments, Mr Woodland said he was &#8220;most proud&#8221; of &#8220;not giving up&#8221; on his career during the difficult past few years.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think this was possible a few years ago, so I tried to slow down and embrace things.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/a1.api.bbc.co.uk\/hit.xiti\/?s=598314&amp;p=sport.golf.articles.c5y85wyxj91o.page&amp;x1=%5Burn%3Abbc%3Aoptimo%3Aasset%3Ac5y85wyxj91o%5D&amp;x4=%5Ben-gb%5D&amp;x5=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fsport%2Fgolf%2Farticles%2Fc5y85wyxj91o%5D&amp;x7=%5Barticle%5D&amp;x8=%5Bsynd_nojs_ISAPI%5D&amp;x9=%5BEmotional+Woodland+seals+first+win+since+brain+surgery%5D&amp;x11=%5B2026-03-29T22%3A39%3A30.775Z%5D&amp;x12=%5B2026-03-29T22%3A39%3A30.775Z%5D&amp;x19=%5Byahoo.north.america%5D\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Children&#8217;s Houston Open final round leaderboard -twenty one G Woodland (USA); -16 N Hojgaard (The); -15 J Kiefer (USA), MW Lee (Australia). -14 S. Stevens (USA); -13 S Yelamaraju (Canada), J Day (Australia), J Knapp (USA), C Gotterup (USA) advertisement Others selected: -7 S Rowley (Ire), H Hall (Eng); -6 P Waring (English); -5 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-45152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}