{"id":437968,"date":"2026-03-31T15:07:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=437968"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:07:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:07:26","slug":"gary-woodland-withdraws-from-valero-for-preparations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/gary-woodland-withdraws-from-valero-for-preparations\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Woodland Withdraws From Valero For Preparations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary Woodland has had a rough go in recent years.\u00a0 He went through an open brain surgery and had to spend a year in recovery.\u00a0 Putting in other factors, it had been seven years since he last won a tournament.\u00a0 He has received a lot of support from the Tour, especially after it recognized him with the Courage Award.<\/a>\u00a0 This week, after winning the Houston Open, Woodland has decided to withdraw from the Valero Open in order to make preparations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Woodland\u2019s Withdraw<\/span><\/h2>\n

The Valero Texas Open may be happening this week, but Woodland will not be there<\/a>.\u00a0 This comes as a surprise considering that Woodland just achieved his first victory since his return after surgery.\u00a0 However, he does have some good reasoning.\u00a0 The Masters Tournament is just around the corner, and he wants to prepare for that.\u00a0 Woodland managed to earn himself a spot in the Masters through his Houston Open victory.\u00a0 As per usual, the event organizers had a backup ready to take Woodland\u2019s place.\u00a0 This time, Jackson Suber will be filling in for the Houston Open champion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not The Only Withdraw<\/span><\/h2>\n

Gary Woodland is far from the only player who withdrew from the Valero Open.\u00a0 He\u2019s not even the only one taking a break in preparation for the Masters.\u00a0 For the Valero, there were three other withdrawals at the time of writing.\u00a0 Pierceson Coody, Nicolai Hojgaard, and Matti Schmid have all taken a step back for the event.\u00a0 Like with Woodland, their spots have been filled by Taylor Moore, Joel Dahmen, and Sam Ryder, respectively.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to preparations for the Masters, Rory McIlroy cleared his schedule after throwing out his back<\/a> during the Arnold Palmer Invitational.\u00a0 Now he\u2019s getting ready to host the majors dinner and defend his title.\u00a0 Tiger Woods has only made one tournament appearance this year and is looking to join the Masters.\u00a0 Still nothing confirmed, and his recent accident<\/a> will likely put a damper on things.\u00a0 Even Scottie Scheffler took a step back.\u00a0 Granted, he did it for his family, but like with Woodland, he will also get time to make his own preparations.\u00a0 Despite some big names missing from the Valero, the event does have some notable ones.\u00a0 Brian Harman is the defending champion this week and is facing competition from other previous champions, including JJ Spaun, Collin Morikawa, and Jordan Spieth.\u00a0 Despite being overshadowed by a major, the show must go on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Woodland At The Masters<\/span><\/h2>\n

Gary Woodland went through a lot of hardship as a result of his surgery.\u00a0 It\u2019s never easy to go through a serious surgery.\u00a0 He even admitted that the ordeal had given him PTSD<\/a>.\u00a0 However, with his recent victory, things are looking up for him.\u00a0 Woodland even has a lot of support from the Tour.\u00a0 Now he is looking forward to the Masters and is looking to bring that same energy that gave him the win.\u00a0 Even if he doesn\u2019t win, it won\u2019t be anything short of a good show to watch him play.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Erik Williams-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gary Woodland has had a rough go in recent years.\u00a0 He went through an open brain surgery and had to spend a year in recovery.\u00a0 Putting in other factors, it had been seven years since he last won a tournament.\u00a0 He has received a lot of support from the Tour, especially after it recognized him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":437970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[76,275,335,165],"class_list":["post-437968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-gary-woodland","tag-masters-tournament","tag-texas-childrens-houston-open","tag-valero-texas-open"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437971,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437968\/revisions\/437971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}