Gary Woodland Comes Up Short on Final Two Holes With a Chance to Win at Bay Hill
ORLANDO, Fla. — Gary Woodland took the drive up the Florida Turnpike last Monday with a level of confidence he hadn’t felt in a long time.
A T5 finish at the Honda Classic on a demanding Champion course at PGA National left Woodland believing in what he had been working on over the last couple of months and happy he was finally healthy enough to execute his game.
And it appeared that his efforts were about to pay off. Woodland stood on the 17th tee Sunday afternoon at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a one-stroke lead. He left the 18th green three shots lost to par and two shots behind the winner, Scottie Scheffler.
Maybe there is more work to do. Woodland started the Sunday’s final round three shots behind leaders Talor Gooch and Billy Horschel. As everyone was dropping shots around him on Sunday, the 37-year-old Woodland was even par for the day through 15 holes and moving up the leaderboard. He was just one shot back of Scheffler and Viktor Hovland.
At the par-5 16th, Woodland carved a 6-iron from the right rough to the middle of the green and made eagle-3 to take the lead.
It fell apart at the par-3 17th, where Woodland tried to cut an 8-iron into the hole and found the front bunker. His ball wasn’t buried, but it hadn’t completely extricated itself from the pitch mark and left an odd lie, which Woodland misjudged and left the ball in the bunker. It led to a double-bogey and cost him his fifth career win.
It had been a tough couple of years for the 2019 U.S. Open winner. A torn labrum in his left hip in the middle of the 2020 season and a positive COVID diagnosis at last year’s Honda has made Woodland’s life a struggle.
Needing four cortisone shots just to get through the remainder of the 2020 season, Woodland hoped taking time off before the 2021 season would give his hip time to heal. That didn’t work and when Woodland arrived at Tampa last May, the home of the Valspar Championship, he continued to struggle with his health and his game.
Always believing he needed to gut it out, likely because of his athletic attitude from his days playing college basketball at Washburn College, Woodland wouldn’t defer to surgery or take enough time off to let the hip heal completely, believing he needed to play.
Eventually, the pain from the hip caused some swing issues that turned into 11 missed cuts in 25 events and only three top-10s in 2021.
All that seemed like a memory for Woodland as he stood on the putting green on Tuesday at Bay Hill Club and Lodge with a certainty that he hasn’t had since his winning the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
“On one of the most demanding golf courses we see all year (PGA National), it was pretty stress-free for me,” Woodland said. “Even when I got into trouble, I knew what I was doing. I felt comfortable all week. Coming down the stretch on Sunday — 15, 17, those holes can jump up and get you — and I felt as good as I’ve felt in a long time. I’m talking a couple of years. That was nice.”
Woodland talked about how his putting was where he wanted it to be and his swing just needed reps, which is why he decided to come to the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a venue he had never finished better than T20 (2014) and was making his first visit since a missed cut in 2016.
“(Honda) was a big step for me. I was able to do stuff last week hitting a golf ball that I hadn’t done in a long time. That’s encouraging to me. There are no more Band-Aid fixes. You have to accept where you are and start climbing back up.”
After winning the U.S. Open, Woodland moved to 12th in the Official World Golf Ranking, but as he arrived in Florida, he was 139th in the world. After his T5 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational he was No. 91.
“All in all, I need a day off," he said Sunday afternoon. “It was just a mental — just beats you up out there. The wind, the conditions, and the greens, there's just not much grass on them. You're trying to hit good putts, but every once in a while, if you don't hit it solid, it can squirt on you like it did on 17.”