MRI on Gary Woodland's wrist encouraging

Time off was something Gary Woodland was really looking forward to.

How he’ll spend the next three weeks, however, is anything but what he had in mind.

Prior to Saturday, Woodland’s break following the Masters was supposed to be about rest and refinement. Now it will be about recovery and rehab.

Everything changed for Woodland during Saturday’s third round at the Masters. A troublesome left wrist progressively got worse to the point where he could hardly make a swing without dropping the club in pain.

Woodland entered the day four shots off the lead. He finished with 13-over 85 and later told tournament officials he was withdrawing.

“I’m very frustrated,” Woodland said. “I felt like I was right in the heart of the golf tournament and I felt like I had a chance. For this to happen, I’m pretty upset right now.”

Woodland met with a hand specialist at the course, a member of Augusta National who then referred him to another doctor in Augusta. Woodland had an MRI done Saturday night, and the results were encouraging.

“They did some tests on the wrist and they thought it was pretty bad,” Woodland said. “But the MRI revealed no tears. On a horrible day, that was the best news I could hear.”

Woodland flew back to his Orlando, Fla., home Saturday night and plans to meet with a specialist this week to determine the exact nature and severity of the injury.

He isn’t scheduled to play again until the Wells Fargo Championship, which will be held May 3-6 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C. He had planned to take a couple of weeks off before heading to Las Vegas for a session with swing coach Butch Harmon.

Now the itinerary could involve a lot more rest as well as some form of rehabilitation depending on what further tests on the wrist reveal.

“The first week and a half, I wasn’t going to do anything anyway,” Woodland said. “I was going to go out and see Butch and the last week was when we were really going to hit it hard. I’ve hit it hard a lot this year and I just needed some time off, so we picked these three weeks for me to rest. From that standpoint, it’s a blessing in disguise because I’ll take this time off and we’ll re-evaluate and see if I can go out and meet with Butch and go from there.”