Aaron Wise Opens Up on Mental Health at John Deere Classic

There are moments in golf that transcend the scorecard, moments when the sport reveals itself not as a game of numbers but as a deeply human endeavor. Saturday at TPC Deere Run delivered one such moment when Aaron Wise, standing before CBS cameras after a solid third-round 67, spoke with remarkable honesty about his journey back to competitive golf.

A Champion's Quiet Struggle

For those who followed Wise's meteoric rise, his candor carried particular weight. This is a player who captured the 2016 NCAA championship, won the 2018 Byron Nelson in just his 26th PGA Tour start, and earned Rookie of the Year honors that same season. He climbed as high as 33rd in the world rankings. By every conventional measure, Aaron Wise had arrived.

But success and fulfillment don't always travel the same fairway.

"I was in a place where it was harmful for me to be out here and playing," Wise told reporter Amanda Balionis. "Like I wasn't myself. I wasn't enjoying it anymore."

Those words—harmful, wasn't myself—land with quiet force. They speak to a reality that golf's pristine landscapes and polished broadcasts often obscure: the immense psychological toll of elite competition.

The Masters Withdrawal That Changed Everything

The public first glimpsed Wise's struggles in 2023, when he withdrew from the Masters just days before the tournament began. His Instagram statement was both brave and heartbreaking: "Golf is just as much a mental game as it is one of physical skill, and the mental piece of it has been a struggle for me recently."

He acknowledged the significance of Augusta National but recognized something more important—that he needed time away to focus on his mental health. What followed was a near-complete withdrawal from competitive golf. After the Masters, Wise played just four more events in 2023, a single PGA Tour event in 2024, and a scattered handful of PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour starts last year.

Nearly two years away from the sport he'd mastered.

Finding New Tools, Rediscovering Joy

What struck me most about Wise's interview wasn't the acknowledgment of struggle—athletes increasingly share such stories—but his articulation of growth. "I took a step back and met some great people along the way who helped me with my journey," he said. "Feel a lot calmer, feel a lot like I can enjoy it a little bit more being out here."

He didn't claim the stress had vanished. Professional golf will always demand its psychological pound of flesh. But Wise spoke of having tools now, a better mindset, a capacity to handle what once overwhelmed him.

"There's always going to be stress and tough things associated with being a professional golfer," he acknowledged, "but now I feel like I kind of have tools on how to handle that."

The Long Road Back

The John Deere Classic represents Wise's seventh PGA Tour start of the 2026 season, and Saturday's made cut marks his first weekend action of the year. He sits five strokes back entering Sunday's final round—a respectable position, though not contention.

But the numbers almost miss the point.

"Taking almost two years off was a long time," Wise reflected, "and it definitely made me appreciate how good I was at golf and how much work it takes to be good out here."

There's humility in that statement, and wisdom. Elite performance isn't a light switch. The countless hours at home, the patient rebuilding of skills that once came naturally, the gradual relearning of how to handle tournament pressure—Wise spoke of all this with clear-eyed realism.

Why This Matters Beyond the Leaderboard

Golf has historically been a sport of stoic silence, where struggles stayed behind closed doors and vulnerability was weakness. That culture is changing, slowly, and players like Aaron Wise are accelerating the shift.

When a former Rookie of the Year stands on network television and says the words "harmful for me," he gives permission to every junior golfer, every amateur competitor, every weekend player wrestling with their relationship to this beautiful, maddening game. He reminds us that walking away can be the strongest choice, and that coming back doesn't require pretending the struggle never happened.

Key Takeaways

Aaron Wise has made his first cut of 2026 at the John Deere Classic, shooting a third-round 67 at TPC Deere Run
The former PGA Tour Rookie of the Year took nearly two years away from competitive golf to focus on his mental health
Wise credits meeting "great people" who helped him develop tools and a better mindset for handling competitive stress
His openness continues golf's evolving conversation around mental health and athlete well-being