On a crisp November morning in Troia, Portugal, I followed Chris Wood for a few holes as he completed a commanding wire to wire victory at the newly relaunched MENA Golf Tour’s Q School.
He looked like a man very much in the zone. On his own journey. Doing the work. All week he’d kept himself to himself around the clubhouse and driving range, and out on course, he rarely interacted with his playing partners.
This wasn’t the aloof behaviour of a three time DP World Tour winner thinking he was too good to fraternise with the cast of unknowns he found himself among. Anyone who has spent any time with Woody knows that he’s one of the nicest, most down to earth players in the game. This was something else. These were the actions of a guy laser focussed on his own voyage of self rediscovery. He’d come on his own, no caddie, no family, no friends. He was there to do a job and that job was to gain a MENA Golf Tour card in order to open the door to the thing he so desperately needed above all else, a return to competitive action.
Three Wins, Three Different Stories
Six months, three countries and three victories later, Chris Wood is the 2025/26 MENA Golf Tour Rankings champion.
“I’m very proud to have won the Order of Merit,” he says. “There are some impressive players on the MENA Golf Tour, which shows the depth of golf worldwide nowadays. I was pushed all the way to my three victories, which is great for me, to have those pressure situations.”
The pressure situations he’s referring to were rarely straightforward. In Egypt, he was two shots behind with three holes to play before birdieing the last to force a playoff, then converting on the first extra hole. In Morocco, he found the rough and then the bunker on the 72nd hole before splashing out to four feet and rolling in the winning putt. In Portugal, he played 52 holes without a blemish before his only dropped shot of the week on the penultimate hole. Three different countries, three different tests, three different ways to win.
“Each win offered me different things,” he reflects. “Portugal I dropped my only shot of the week on the penultimate hole. Egypt I was two behind with three to play and birdied the last to sneak into the playoff. Morocco was a real mental battle for me.”
The Toughest Battle Was Internal
The Morocco win perhaps tells us most about where Wood is right now. At Al Houara, he was locked in his own head for much of the week, the anxiety that has been his constant companion for the better part of a decade threatening to take hold once more.
“Anyone who has suffered with anxiety will know that it just totally absorbs you,” he says. “Nothing in the week suggested to me I would feel any different, but I found that week particularly challenging. So to leave a 20 yard bunker shot over a ridge on the final hole, up and down to win, wasn’t ideal.”
It’s said with a smile, but anyone who has watched Wood’s journey knows exactly what that moment represented.
Back at Q School in Troia, those raw, unfiltered quotes captured in the November chill told their own story. “I’ve had enormous challenges mentally over the last few years, so that is the important thing for me,” he said after his final round. “I’m coming quite a long way mentally, and that’s a massive deal for me.”
Trust, Friendship and the Right People
The work he’s referring to goes deep. He speaks about rediscovering intuitive skill rather than drilling swing mechanics, of surrounding himself with people who truly understand his journey. Chief among them is Chris Lloyd, Lloydy, a friend of 25 years who has carried his bag for much of the season.
“He totally gets the work I’m doing and is a big part of our conversations when I’m at events and when I’m on practice weeks at home,” Wood says. “He’s been on his own journey from when he was playing on the EuroPro, Challenge and DP World Tour. Nothing is off the table in our relationship. To have someone you can genuinely call a mate with you is quite rare.”
The anxiety that derailed Wood’s career from 2019 onwards was, by his own admission, all consuming. At his lowest, his swing had become unrecognisably short and out of sync, a physical manifestation of a mental battle he was losing. He lost his DP World Tour card, fell outside the top 2,000 in the world rankings, and briefly stepped away from the game entirely.
Yet he never once considered walking away for good.
“Even at my lowest, darkest points, I would be watching some golf and saying to myself, I know I’ve got that shot, it’s in there,” he says. “The challenge with anxiety is it takes over your life. You are trapped and feel like you can’t get on top of it. It’s a very patient journey for me and the people I have around me.”
Why the MENA Golf Tour Mattered
MENA Golf Tour Q School gave him exactly what he needed, a quiet corner of the professional game where he could get on with his work, away from any spotlight or expectation.
“Going to Q School was a demonstration of how far I’ve come mentally to accept where I am,” he says. “I’d just come off missing the cut by one shot at DP World Tour Final Stage, but I felt like my game was moving in a positive direction. I needed and, importantly, wanted to play.
Thankfully the MENA Golf Tour was relaunching and I decided to go.”
The tour has provided more than just competitive action. Its winter schedule, spanning Portugal, Egypt and Morocco, offered something Wood couldn’t find elsewhere. “It came at a great time of year, being able to play through the winter months,” he says. “There are no alternatives, and I see that as one of the many upsides of the tour. It will only grow each season, I’m convinced of that.”
Commissioner Keith Waters has earned particular praise from Wood for building something meaningful around the pathway to the DP World Tour. “Keith has a wealth of experience and has managed to put in place some great opportunities for MENA Golf Tour players to progress their careers, at a time when the DP World and HotelPlanner Tours are restructuring their categories,” he says. “It has offered me a realistic route back to where I want to be playing.”
The Route Back Is Now Real
That route is now clearly signposted. As Rankings winner, Wood receives a Category 12 exemption and a full HotelPlanner Tour card for the remainder of the 2026 season. He and the top three in the Rankings also earn direct exemptions into Stage Two of the DP World Tour Qualifying School in October. The DP World Tour card he has craved is now within genuine reach.
Since his last victory, the 2016 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, Wood and his wife have had four children: Jonah, Lottie, Toby and Kasper. None of them had seen Dad win a professional tournament. Until now.
“My daughter Lottie is especially keen to throw a big party with lots of music and a party dress,” he says. “In my mind, that party will come when I am fully exempt back on the DP World Tour. She does have my winners medal from Egypt hanging on her bed though, they were all very excited when I brought home the three trophies from my MENA Golf Tour wins.”
For Chris Wood, the voyage of self rediscovery that began on that crisp November morning in Troia is very much still underway. But the destination is coming into focus.
