Sunday’s victory was an emotional one for Russell Henley. After winning the Charles Schwab Challenge, he dropped to his knees on the 18th green and pulled his kid into the tightest hug. His wife, Teil Duncan Henley, was there too, and for a moment, Colonial Country Club just faded into the background. Henley had done something most players cannot do on a Sunday at Colonial. But little did anyone know, to do what he did, he was fighting an internal battle all along.

“Yeah, I mean, I just kept telling myself, I want to win, I want to make, I wanna be here. I want to be hitting these putts and be in contention. This is why I practice hard. And yeah, then to come back to the playoffs and do that, I’m still kind of shaking. That was as nervous as I’ve been over a putt in my whole life,” he said in the post-game conference.

He birdied 16, 17, and 18 in regulation to reach 12 under and set the clubhouse target, and then matched it in a sudden-death playoff against Eric Cole on the same par-4 18th to claim his sixth PGA Tour title. But the path to reach that particular moment was anything but steady. In fact, his round had all the signs of slipping away early.

He opened with an eagle and a birdie, but just as quickly, the rhythm broke. He then bogeyed three straight holes, the stretch golfers call the “Horseshoe,” dropping three shots in five holes. With that, he was three strokes behind the lead when he stepped onto the 16th tee. This is where Henley felt things got out of hand. But even before the nerves derailed him, his caddie, Andrew Sanders, did, and he showed him a way out.

Sanders, who has been on Henley’s bag since mid-2022, after Henley parted with Todd Gjesvold, asked him to reset at that moment. And that was the magic mantra!

Henley birdied a seven-footer on 18 to force the playoff! He was so thrilled that he let out an uncharacteristic scream as he pumped his fist in the air. The PGA Tour posted a video on X capturing that fist-pump moment.

He had just made back-to-back 15-footers on 16 and 17, and the adrenaline rush was through the roof. And right after that, he immediately went back to one more hole and did it again to claim his trophy. He shared how he felt at the press conference:

“Oh man, I don’t know. I was feeling a little jittery or quick or something on the front and hit some. While I was hitting the fairway, I was just hitting some poor iron swings. So, just very frustrating to turn at one over par. And he said, ‘Let’s reset.’ And I just kind of calmed down a little bit and started to hit some good shots. Felt like I was hitting good putts most of the day, and they just went in at the end.”

Looking back at the tournament, though, Henley admitted it was never just about one swing or one moment.

“I think the longer you play this game, the more you want success,” Henley said. “I’ve just worked harder and harder, and I feel like I’ve been a little off mentally this year. Just felt like I fought really hard through the end, so it just felt really good to see an awesome result.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Henley has felt his nerves after and during a win. Back in 2022, after his Worldwide Technology Championship victory at Mayakoba, Henley candidly said, “I’ve just choked, you know. The nerves have gotten to me, and I’ve made bad mistakes, bad mental mistakes, and just haven’t gotten it done on Sunday.”

Though he openly acknowledges his nerves, he has learned to work through them to consistently find the winner’s circle

Apart from Sanders, his wife is someone who keeps his grounded at all times. In fact, after the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational, Henley said, “She puts my steel in my spine.”

Teil also told Golfweek that ahead of the Players Championship a few years back, she had to give him a straight talking point. She had said, “If that is the attitude you’re going to carry around, then we should just go home because it’s not dog-eat-dog out there. These people want to beat you. They want to see you fail, and you have to be an animal. Otherwise, you’re going to open that door to all that negativity. We might as well pack and go home.”

Henley has been open about how his wife’s support has pushed him to look beyond his nerves and strive for victory in hard times.

Henley is not the only one to have faced nerves. It has happened to some of the best players, often at the worst times.

More players faced the same nerves as Russell Henley

At the 2026 Players Championship, Cameron Young stood over an 8-inch putt on the 18th to win golf’s biggest regular event. From the outside, he looked composed. However, cameras don’t capture the true internal story. He later appeared on the Pat McAfee Show and revealed that his hands were shaking so badly over that putt that he couldn’t get the ball lined up.

“The nerves get in over the eight-inch putt on the last. That hole looked really, really small there from pretty close range,” he said to the host.

“I put a line on my ball to try to aim it, and I could not get that thing pointed anywhere near the hole. It doesn’t look like it in the video, but my hands were shaking pretty bad.”

And yet, despite that, he made the win as he took home a $4.5 million purse at TPC Sawgrass and earned his second win on the Tour.

And the nerves kicking in do not have a set criterion. At the 2024 Presidents Cup, Hideki Matsuyama, who’s a Masters champion and one of the most experienced players in the world, beat World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in singles, and also faced a similar situation. After the tournament, he was straightforward about what it felt like on the course.

“My last putt right there, I was super nervous. My hands were shaking a lot.”