Adam Bethel

Gary Woodland is the anti-Tiger Woods in every possible way. Allow me to explain why. Gary Woodland just won the Houston Open by five shots. Two and a half years ago, doctors cut a baseball-sized hole in his skull to remove a brain lesion. He spent two nights in the ICU. There was a real chance he would wake up paralyzed. This is the best comeback story in golf right now and it's not even close. The full story behind today is insane. In 2019, Gary Woodland won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. He finished 13-under and beat Brooks Koepka by three strokes. At that point, Woodland had four PGA Tour wins including a major, and was ranked 12th in the world. Then everything slowly fell apart. After the 2023 Masters, Woodland became consumed by fear. Not regular nerves. Actual, debilitating terror. He was afraid he was going to die. Afraid something was going to happen to his kids. Afraid of falling to his death in his sleep. At the Memorial Tournament in June 2023, he woke up in his hotel room and clung to the mattress for an hour. He was convinced that if he let go, he would fall. His hands were trembling. He had no appetite. Spasms would jolt him awake at night. He was losing focus over putts. Forgetting what club he was holding mid-swing. An MRI finally revealed the cause. A lesion was growing on his brain. It was pressing directly on the part of his brain that controls fear and anxiety. Think about that. The thing responsible for every irrational terror he was experiencing had a physical, medical explanation. His brain was literally being pressed into a constant state of fear. In September 2023, Woodland had a craniotomy. Surgeons removed as much of the lesion as they could, roughly half, because it was pressed against the optic tract of his left eye. They cut off blood supply to the rest to try to stop it from growing. He walked out of the hospital two days later. Started putting again two days after that. He came back to the PGA Tour in January 2024 at the Sony Open. But he was nowhere near the same player. In 26 starts during 2024, he had three top-25 finishes. His best was a tie for ninth at the Shriners Children's Open. For a former U.S. Open champion, those are survival numbers. And nobody knew the full extent of what he was dealing with. Because on top of the brain surgery and the recovery, Woodland had been diagnosed with PTSD. He kept it hidden for over a year. He described being hypervigilant on the course. A walking scorer once got too close from behind and startled him so badly that his vision went blurry and he forgot where he was. He would go into bathrooms between holes and cry. He would break down in the scoring trailer after rounds. He would sprint to his car in the parking lot just to hide it from everyone. He said he felt like he was living a lie. Spending so much energy pretending to be okay that he had nothing left for the actual golf. On March 9, three weeks before this Houston Open, Woodland finally told the truth publicly. He sat down with Golf Channel's Rex Hoggard and revealed everything. The PTSD. The crying. The fear. All of it. He said after that interview it felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off his back. Then he showed up at Memorial Park. He opened with a 64. Then a 63. Then a 65. Then a 67 on Sunday to close it out. 259 total. A tournament record. 21-under par. Five strokes clear of Nicolai Højgaard. Wire to wire. Led every single round. His first win since the 2019 U.S. Open. Nearly seven years between victories. Brain surgery, PTSD, two years of hiding in bathrooms between holes, and a thousand pounds of weight he was carrying that nobody could see. This is a guy who was a basketball player first. He grew up in Topeka, Kansas, won state basketball titles at Shawnee Heights High School, and played a year of college basketball at Washburn before he realized golf was his future. He won the Courage Award from the PGA Tour in 2025. The seventh player to ever receive it. And now, at 41 years old, with titanium plates holding his skull together, he walked into Memorial Park three weeks after telling the world the truth about what he had been going through and played the best golf of the entire field for four straight days. The full breakdown of Woodland's career, the surgery, the PTSD, and how he got to this point is here: itsgame7.com/news/gary-wood… There is a reason this one hits different. Comeback stories in sports usually involve torn ACLs or shoulder surgeries. Things you can see. Things that heal on a timeline. Woodland's comeback was from something that rewired his brain. Something that turned his own mind against him. And the hardest part of his recovery wasn't physical. It was admitting to the people around him that he wasn't okay. Three weeks ago he said the words out loud. Today he won a golf tournament by five shots.

So awesome! Congrats Spencer!

@theredbird_way @BirdsOnTheBat13 It’s hard to imagine that the bullpen is going to be anything other than exactly this all year. It’s tough but it’s not surprising at all.

Cardinals bullpen in the Opening Series vs Rays: 13.0 IP 24 H 16 R 15 ER 8 BB 9 K ERA: 10.38 WHIP: 2.46 Not good.

I don’t like the argument that says we need to wreck the system before the other guys do it. If the filibuster goes away the SAVE act will be done away with in the first year of the next Democrat term and either party that has a simple majority in both houses and the White House can force any legislation it wants down the throat of the country. Acting in bad faith to pre-empt someone else from acting in bad faith is not a moral argument in my mind.

💯

@KFCBarstool They will stay that way unless a team decides to use one of its challenges. So in a big spot or late in the game we’re going to see it challenged, even if it’s very close.

That pitch the other day that was like right over the whole ass plate? Great ABS. This? Succccccks. I know this can’t be the rule but it should almost be the ball has to be in the zone a certain amount. One millimeter touching the zone are toss up calls that should stay that way

Tigers in The Show ✨ #MizzouNOW

@FastbreakHoops5 100 times out of 100. It’s probably 3 travels. The team should have to give up the next two possessions as well!

Is this a travel 🤔

@SenWarren This is so disgusting. It’s based in pure jealousy.

Today, I'm introducing my wealth tax — and more than 50 members of Congress are joining me. It’s time for the government to start working for American families, not just the ultra-rich.

@RandPaul He needs to rot in prison. He’s responsible for countless deaths and untold suffering. Despicable.

Fauci's philosophy: punish people until they submit. He lied to Congress, funded gain-of-function research, and covered it all up. I've referred him for criminal prosecution three times. Justice is long overdue.

The air traffic controller cleared the fire truck onto the runway. Seconds later, the same controller screamed “stop, stop, stop.” The plane was doing 93 to 105 mph. Both pilots are dead. Everyone will frame this as controller error. One controller was simultaneously managing a United flight that aborted takeoff after an anti-ice warning, dispatching a fire truck across an active runway, and sequencing an inbound Air Canada landing at highway speed. At 11:40 PM. On a mandatory overtime shift at a facility that has been understaffed for years. A system that assigns one person that workload will produce exactly this outcome. The only variable is when. The FAA is short approximately 3,000 controllers. The headcount dropped 13% from 2010 to 2024 while flight volume rose 10%. Over 40% of the FAA’s 290 terminal facilities are understaffed. The New York TRACON, which manages the most congested airspace in America across LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark, has been chronically below target. Newark was operating at 59% of its staffing goal. LaGuardia handles 900 flights a day. The hiring pipeline is broken at every stage. Only 2% of applicants complete the full process. Training takes up to 6 years. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City is a bottleneck, with roughly 35% of trainees washing out. Congress blocked legislation to build a second academy. In one recent hiring cycle, the FAA brought on 1,512 candidates and lost 1,300 in the same window. Net gain: around 160 controllers for an entire country. Three things need to happen and everyone who can make them happen has known for years. Congress needs to fund and authorize a second FAA training academy. One facility in Oklahoma City cannot produce enough controllers for 900 million annual passengers. Members of Congress from Oklahoma have actively blocked this. That needs to end yesterday. The FAA needs to cut certification time. Six years from application to fully certified controller is absurd. The agency’s own data shows tower simulators reduce certification time by 27%. They’ve installed them at 95 facilities. That should be every facility, and the simulated hours should count toward more of the certification requirement. The FAA needs to stop plugging staffing gaps with mandatory overtime. Controllers at understaffed facilities are working six-day weeks rotating between morning, mid, and night shifts. The NTSB has flagged fatigue repeatedly. The controller last night was managing overlapping emergencies during a nighttime operation. Overtime is not a staffing plan. It’s a countdown to the next runway collision. The controller said “I messed up” to a Frontier pilot who watched the whole thing. The pilot responded “No man, you did the best you could.” One of them is right. The answer determines whether this happens again.

Spy balloon #2 seen headed south down the Florida coast from Jupiter. What is going on!?! #SpyBalloon

@KillianMWright I don’t think it is among people that matter in the athletic department.

There should be zero discussions about firing Dennis Gates. I can’t really fathom that that’s a conversation right now.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is wrong about most social issues, but she's right about this one. I give her a lot of credit for speaking out. Very, very few politicians--Republican or Democrat--are willing to do so.

@AOC This is correct.

This is sad. I know as a politician these companies are going to spend a billion dollars against me for saying it but 🤷🏽‍♀️ Pervasive gambling is not good for society. It turns life into a casino, traps people in addiction & debt, surges domestic violence, and fosters manipulation.

@EliDrinkwitz He used to make 3’s

Genuinely what does Jacob crews do😂😂😂😂

@Bigqadi That does not look real

Absolutely outrageous from Gout Gout. 10.04 at the age of 16. Speechless.

@AlTheBoss03 Albert Pujols. Try a harder question.

First base only 👀 Name the greatest pure hitter to ever play the position. Who you got? You can’t say Lou Gehrig. Too easy.

People need to go to jail for this.

What a year for Venezuela! 🇻🇪 What an entertaining game, I loved it. Obviously rooting for #USA 🇺🇸 but that was a classic. #WorldBaseballClassic

Bryce Harper Captain America!! #USA #USA #WorldBaseballClassic