Former Ryder Cup participant Chris Wooden has opened up about his struggles with continual anxiousness as he bids to get his profession again on monitor.
Wooden completed fifth within the 2008 Open as an newbie and was third the next 12 months at Turnberry, the place a bogey on the 72nd gap left him a shot outdoors the play-off between Stewart Cink and Tom Watson.
A 3rd DP World Tour title within the 2016 BMW PGA Championship secured Wooden’s place on Europe’s Ryder Cup staff and he received one level from two matches at Hazeltine, shedding his singles to Dustin Johnson on the 18th.
The 36-year-old from Bristol has suffered from accidents and a lack of kind lately and performed simply two Problem Tour occasions in 2023 earlier than taking a full 12 months out.
STRUGGLING FOR A FEW YEARS
“I used to be recognized with continual anxiousness and burnout,” the world #1,535 stated forward of contesting back-to-back occasions in Thailand, a part of the Asian Tour’s Worldwide Sequence.
“I’ve been by way of a extremely garbage time over the previous few years the place my golf has actually impacted me mentally.
“I’ve really been like that since 2019 but it surely took possibly 4 years earlier than I did something about it. It took actually bottoming out to cease. I took a complete 12 months off and this 12 months has been about attempting to get a card in my hand once more.
“It’s nonetheless very, very arduous, however I’m nonetheless doing it as a result of I wish to and since I really feel like I’ve obtained a lot extra to supply. I do know the standard of photographs I’ve obtained and I can hit, in order that’s why I’m nonetheless in it.
“Ten years in the past, in the event you had stated to me you may be on this place mentally, I used to be so unaware of what these phrases meant, and it takes going by way of one thing like this, or somebody very near you going by way of it, earlier than you may recognize what these struggles are literally like.
“It’s arduous as a result of I nonetheless imagine I’ve even obtained a Ryder Cup in me, I really imagine that, and I wouldn’t nonetheless be placing myself in positions the place I really feel anxious and uncovered until I felt prefer it’s going to be price it.”
