Meet US Open golf star who had brain surgery to remove tumour and feared he'd die

Gary Woodland's journey to the US Open has certainly been a difficult one given his recent health struggles which left him fearing for his life. Woodland, who won the tournament in 2019, will play at Pinehurst less than a year after undergoing brain surgery.

The 39-year-old's life was turned upside down in August when he announced he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. He explained that he began experiencing symptoms after last year's Masters, which included seizures, night sweats, tremors and a crippling fear of death.

"It came out of nowhere," said Woodland at a press conference in January. "It was a horrible experience. All you wanted to do was go to sleep to not think about it, and going to sleep was the worst part. That is where all the seizures were happening. It was a horrible four, five months.

"A lot of fear, that was the one that scared me the most. I'm a very optimistic person. I believe good things will happen. I was very fear-driving, every day, mostly around death. As it got worse, loss of appetite, chills, no energy. It started getting pretty bad."

Woodland continued to play golf in spite of his worsening condition until his caddie pulled him aside and urged him to seek medical help. He said that although it was a welcome break from what he was going through, he was unable to focus properly as the tumour wreaked havoc on his brain.

"The reason I kept playing is my game from a physical standpoint felt really good," he said. "I was in positions that I've been trying to get into a long time. It was a break from what I was dealing with off the course. It was hard because we didn't tell anybody. We didn't know exactly what was going on.

"My wife was flying out most weekends because I didn't want to be alone. Sleeping was the worst part because I was jolting, jumping out of bed with fear, mostly like I said around death. My caddie pulled me aside [and said]: 'You can't play this way. You've got to go get help. You've got to get fixed'.

"I would be standing over a club and forget which club I'm hitting. I would be lining up putts and think: 'This is taking too long. I'm just going to hit it'. I didn't have the focus or the energy."

Woodland went under the knife last September to remove the lesion on the left side of his brain. The procedure involved a craniotomy, which is the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull.

"They cut me open all the way down to my ear, so I've got a robotic head, I guess," he explained. "They couldn't get it all out from where it was located. It was benign. If it was cancerous they would have removed it all. It's up against my optic tract."

The surgery was a success and Woodland returned to golf in January, making his comeback at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He will be hoping to make himself proud by putting on a good show at the US Open, which is set to get underway on Thursday.