PNC CHAMPIONSHIP

December 18, 2025

Gary Woodland

Dan Woodland

The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Gary and Dan Woodland, making your first appearance here at the PNC championship. Just to start, how excited are you guys to be here?

GARY WOODLAND: It's awesome. Obviously one we've seen on TV for a long time. Winning in 2019, that was one of the first things that came to mind was that we'd have an opportunity to play in this.

Obviously my kids are young, and it's nice after a couple years -- we've both battled stuff. So it's nice to, one, be in a position to come out and play. My sister will be here caddieing for him, and he'll have all the grandkids here. We'll have a nice family week this week, so pretty cool.

DAN WOODLAND: I can't think of a better way to start the holidays. Got the whole family here, the grandkids here. My daughter's here. My wife's here. I'm excited.

Q. Dan, tell us about your game, your handicap, how often you play, your strengths.

DAN WOODLAND: Unfortunately, I don't play a whole lot. Gary gave me a call about a month ago, month and a half ago, and I can tell you, I've hit more golf balls the last month and a half than I have the last 25 years.

(Laughter.)

So that kind of explains it all. Like I say, I spend a lot of time with my grand kids, but how can you turn this opportunity down? It's awesome.

Q. What was the first thing that came to mind when Gary mentioned that he needed a partner for this?

DAN WOODLAND: I was real excited. I just jumped at it. Yeah, this is great. Then after a while, I started thinking, I haven't played much here lately. I've got to start grinding.

He helped me so much. He took so much pressure off. He just said, hey, hit a couple fairways, make a couple putts. We'll have fun.

Q. Have you ever played sports on network television before?

DAN WOODLAND: I played baseball, golly, back when I was like 12 years old. We had a little baseball game like that, but that's the only time. That is the only time.

Q. What are you thinking, Gary?

GARY WOODLAND: Obviously I am where I am because he got me into this. So now I wanted to thank you this week, to say thank you, but it's also a little bit of a payback. Now he gets to see what I deal with every week and deal with all the stress and get inside the ropes. It should be fun. We'll have a good time.

Q. One quick one if you don't mind. When you were playing baseball and basketball and golf, and I think you must have had a sitdown with your dad explaining that we're going to have to go a certain direction here, how did that conversation go?

GARY WOODLAND: It was tough for me because obviously growing up in Kansas, we had the season. I couldn't play golf or baseball all year long, so I had to play basketball during the winter.

I was 16 when we sat down and had the conversation I needed to make a choice if it was going to be golf or baseball. We had just probably played 100 games that summer in baseball, and I was tired and burned out, and I decided, okay, I was done with that one, and I'll just stick with golf and basketball.

I'm very lucky and very thankful that I did because I wouldn't still be playing if I was 41. I wouldn't still be playing a sport. Fortunately, I picked that decision at 16.

Q. How did that conversation go? Did you do most of the talking? Did you weigh in at all, Dan?

DAN WOODLAND: Mostly listened. It's been his show. I kind of stayed back and let him make his own decisions and everything like that. To me it was tough because I feel baseball was his best sport, and we always say basketball was his love. Now we play golf (laughter).

GARY WOODLAND: Golf was just one thing I was good at.

Q. Gary, everything you've been through the last few years, how much more does that make something like this special?

GARY WOODLAND: 100 percent. My whole life's in perspective now. To be honest, I probably took it for granted being out here. This is my 17th year out here on TOUR. You just expect that to happen every year. When I got -- found out that deal, what was that, May 24th, almost 2 1/2, 3 1/2 years ago now, my life changed for sure.

It's still been a journey, right? I'm still battling. I'm still grinding. Even for us, my first tournament back after surgery was Sony, and I got a call the Saturday before from my mom that my dad got diagnosed with cancer. So my poor mom's been through it any more than either one of us dealing with us.

But he rang the bell almost a year ago now, and I've gotten to a point where I'm still healing but I'm getting better. This is a special week for both of us for perspective for sure.

Q. You've had a full schedule the last two years. What is the impact right now from that on your day-to-day life?

GARY WOODLAND: It's tough. This year was probably the hardest year I battled. I'm still healing, right? At the end of the day, I've still got a tumor in my head on my brain. It hasn't grown in two years, so we're good with that, but it's in a part of the brain that causes me a lot of issues, and I'm still battling and grinding with it.

I'm healing. I'm getting better. The surgeons and doctors are happy with where I'm at, but I have a long way to go. It's a learning process every day.

I've taken off the last couple months to focus more on my health to hopefully it's a long year and try to battle and get through it. It's getting better. It's still a long way from where we want it to be.

Q. Dan, what's your greatest memory about Pebble Beach 2019?

DAN WOODLAND: Wow, I don't know where to start then. I'll tell you what, I think a lot of it was, I will say, his chip on 17, and I missed that. I was heading to 18. I don't know, somebody, one of the newsstands came and got me and took me up there.

But to watch that last putt go in, it sealed the deal. Hey, what a deal it was, incredible.

Q. Gary, obviously there's only a certain number of spots to get into this and a lot of competition for those spots. How long has this invitation kind of been in the works being that you qualified in '19?

GARY WOODLAND: Yeah, we talked about it for a while. It was nice to get the call. I wish JT was here because I was kind of grinding him and battling him. This is a special one.

Like I said, I know it's a major champion deal, so I knew when I won in '19 that we'd have an opportunity. From a health standpoint, this is the first year that we've really been able to do it. It was nice to be able to get that call and be able to do it for sure.

Q. Was it something perhaps that was in the works before the health issues?

GARY WOODLAND: Yeah, we've talked about it for a while. We've talked about it, obviously '19, COVID happened the next year, and we've battled stuff since. This is definitely one we've looked forward to for sure.

Q. When the call came, what was the reaction?

GARY WOODLAND: I knew I was ready. I was just seeing if he was ready to do it. He said he was, and here we are.

Q. My question is for you, Dad, Mr. Dan Woodland. Your son has said how important it was when you were there on Father's Day when he won the U.S. Open, and I also read that you were by his side recovering from brain surgery. How important is this tournament, which is all about a family, to you?

DAN WOODLAND: You know when he was first diagnosed with this, all we could do was stand by his side, support him, and like I said, just pray for him.

Q. Totally off of this weekend, Gary, what comes to mind when you hear that Tiger Woods is going to be 50 at the end of this year?

GARY WOODLAND: I knew he was old. I didn't realize he was that old. Tiger's impact obviously in the game of golf is amazing. What he's done off the course with his foundation, I wish he was here too. Hopefully he's healing to a point where he's going to get back out because we all miss him. It's all better when he's out.

I can't believe he's 50. I think it's next week, isn't it, I think? I talk about the Chiefs, I gave him a hard time last week. The Chiefs were out of the playoffs for the first time. I texted him, is this what it's like to be a Raiders fan? You can understand how that came back at me pretty quick.

Tiger's impact is -- we're all here because of him, and he's pushed all of us to be better on the golf course, and obviously like I said, what he's done off the golf course has made us all want to have a bigger impact off the course as well.

Q. What did that mean to you when he gave you that exemption in Genesis?

GARY WOODLAND: It's amazing. He's done it, I had two from him. Probably the biggest call I got was when he picked me for the Presidents Cup in 2019. He's been amazing to me. He's given me advice. He's helped me. I spent a day at his house practicing, just picking his brain. He's had a bigger impact on me than I probably let off, and I'm grateful to call him a friend.

Q. Dan, how many tournaments have you been to?

DAN WOODLAND: Well, when Gary first started on TOUR, we were getting to probably 15, which was a lot, but now as we've aged a little bit and trying to get around logistic-wise, the courses and everything, now we're down to probably about eight. We do the Florida swing, which is easy for us and everything. Probably eight, six to eight.

Q. What was the first one, do you remember?

DAN WOODLAND: Sony.

GARY WOODLAND: 2009.

DAN WOODLAND: Birdied his first hole. We were so excited. Hey, man, this might be easy.

GARY WOODLAND: It wasn't.

Q. Almost drove the green on the first one.

DAN WOODLAND: That he did. That he did.

Q. Gary, I just want to ask what you think about all the chatter with the PGA TOUR and the schedule? Wondering if you've talked to your peers about it or what you think might happen.

GARY WOODLAND: We talked. I think we all know change is needed. Change is tough. We'll see when it gets down what's really going to happen. I do believe we do need to change. We've been stagnant for a long time.

It's hard to go away from taking opportunities away. This TOUR has been based on opportunities for a long time, but I understand we're star driven. It's definitely been that way the last four or five years.

It will be interesting. At the end of the day, if you play well, it takes care of a lot of things, and now I think you're going to have to play really well to take care of a lot of things.

My focus, I've been part of it. I've had some conversations. Unfortunately, my focus has been on my health. So I haven't put too much into it, but I'm assuming '27 is going to be a lot different.

Q. Following up a little bit on that, when you say it needed to change, something needed to change, what in your mind needed to change?

GARY WOODLAND: I think we needed to find a place where we all play more together, and that's tough too because the schedule, the one beauty about being out here is you get to pick your own schedule, and that has probably dwindled the last two years with the Signature Events. It's hard for guys to take off.

It will be nice, I think we've proven that, when all the guys get together. Especially when we go to big golf courses, iconic golf courses, the ratings and everything go up and it's a lot better. But trying to get guys together 20 times a year, if we can do it, it's great. We've all just got to make sure we take care of the other guys as well.