After taking time off from the DP World Tour in 2023 to deal with his mental health, Chris Wood is back. Luke Walker, Getty Images
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SALZBURG, AUSTRIA | The DP World Tour’s return to Austria following a four-year absence for last week’s Austrian Alpine Open presented many possibilities for cultural allusions, both high and popular.
Consider that location. The city of Salzburg was the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, many of the slopes around it were locations for The Sound of Music, and a fortress a few miles to the south was the fictional Schloss Adler in the wartime adventure film Where Eagles Dare.
If you think of the Mozart opera The Magic Flute, those three references share a theme. Prince Tamino in the opera, Maria in the musical, and Richard Burton in the movie must pass a series of seemingly insurmountable tests.
Chris Wood knows how they feel.
The Englishman has known what it is like to enjoy the best that elite golf can offer. He finished tied fifth in the 2008 Open at Royal Birkdale with his father, Richard, on the bag to win the Silver Medal for low amateur.
A year later, still only 21 but now a professional, he was tied third in the same championship at Turnberry, just one shot outside the play-off in which Stewart Cink famously denied Tom Watson.
His third DP World Tour win came in the circuit’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship in 2016, the year he made his Ryder Cup debut.
But it was at the 2017 Masters that the affable 37-year-old from Bristol began to notice a worrying trend in his golf.
After missing the weekend action his caddie revealed that the bagman of his pre-cut playing partner Charley Hoffman had been surprised at the weakness of Wood’s ball flight.
“I didn’t need to be told,” Wood said in discussion with GGP last week. “A strong ball flight in the wind had been my game and I’d lost it. The clubface felt all wrong and weak. I’d lost trust in my swing.”
Yet in his very next start he was fourth in the China Open and in early June he was second at the Nordea Masters in Sweden. The results, however, were utterly deceptive.
“I was tied for the lead playing the last in Sweden,” he said. “It was a dogleg. 3-wood to the corner, 9-iron to the green. But I didn’t know where the ball was going. I pulled it left into the tree but it wasn’t nerves. It was my swing.”
He would finish second three times on the DP World Tour the following year. It pulled the wool over the eyes of others, but he knew the truth all too well.
“The fatigue from playing like that wrecks you,” he explained.
“I hit more balls, I dug deep in the dirt, but it was exhausting. I was physically drained and then, in 2019, the anxiety kicked in. I was getting sweaty without being physically active. Palpitations. Not sleeping.” – Chris Wood
Always a hard worker, he turned to what he knew.
“I hit more balls, I dug deep in the dirt, but it was exhausting. I was physically drained and then, in 2019, the anxiety kicked in. I was getting sweaty without being physically active. Palpitations. Not sleeping.
“I’d be in the garden at 1 in the morning, just trying to do something to find sleep. Then my wife, Bethany, would wake because I was so fidgety. It’s a horrible state.
“COVID came along and it was a chance to take a deep breath. The tour froze all categories and I couldn’t really face playing. I’ve got four children now (Jonah, Lottie, Toby and Kasper) but at the time Bethany and myself had just the two eldest.
Chris Wood has shown signs of renewed confidence in his recent play. Luke Walker, Getty Images
“We’d go for the permitted walks along Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol or to the park, and even then I’d get the extreme feelings that a golf course brought out in me. Eventually I told Bethany what was going on.
“It was horrible. I worked hard with my coaches and they were great but maybe I got it wrong. I needed to be truer to myself and that’s what I’ve been doing the last 18 months (after taking a year off from February 2023).
“It was still tough. I’d be brave from the tee in the first round. I’d commit to driver, hit a lovely shot. But then in round two I’d be fearing that shot for a long time before I reached it.”
Over four years ago he had talked about his feelings with Tommy Fleetwood, who endured a similar problem early in his career.
“Obviously people have their opinions of what you should be doing (depending on their expertise) but I always felt that no psychologist on the planet could help me because I knew where my swing was and Tommy agreed with that.
“The player knows deep down. When you have the belief and the trust you can put your foot on the pedal a little bit more. But I didn’t have that and I knew it.”
In September 2023 he worked for radio at the Ryder Cup and enjoyed it. “It was fun and the people I worked with were great company. We worked in a studio overlooking the first tee, though, and it was painful.”
There was an offer to work at last year’s Open in a similar capacity but he rejected it. He was playing on the Challenge Tour and wanted to commit to a future on the fairway rather than with microphone in hand.
“I never stopped watching on television, even at the worst times. I’d sit there knowing the shot to hit, knowing I could do it, determined to get back.”
The top-10 earned him another start at the Soudal Open, where he made the cut. He played in Austria as a past winner of the Lyoness Open, a forerunner of last week’s new event. He missed the cut but it was not without more good signs in a first round of 68.
Earlier this month, playing on an invitation, Wood carded a final-round 64 to finish tied seventh in the Turkish Airlines Open. The television commentary teams and fans around the world urged every putt to the hole.
In a post-round interview that went viral Wood fought back tears as he revealed his torment.
“It’s been horrendous,” he said. “I’ve been going through hell. It’s been a long old road but I never lost belief in myself. The fire in my belly has always been there.
“My anxiety has been horrendous and the tour have been good. The medical team have really helped me. I’ve had so much trauma and I don’t want to go back there.
“I need some starts. Hopefully this is putting my name out there and people remember me. If anyone that wants me there, please pick up the phone because I need a few starts this year.”
The top-10 earned him another start at the Soudal Open, where he made the cut. He played in Austria as a past winner of the Lyoness Open, a forerunner of last week’s new event. He missed the cut but it was not without more good signs in a first round of 68.
His hope that he is remembered is not futile. The golf community has not forgotten him and his honesty has increased his popularity. He will not lack support when he gets starts this season.
Bethany might be entertained by the story references for she is a writer of children’s books. She knows characters’ story arcs are never straightforward. Here’s hoping for a happy ending.
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