01부상 시련 딛고 마음가짐 새롭게… 분위기 전환 나선다
DP월드투어에서 활약 중인 댄 브라운이 연이은 부상 악재를 뒤로하고 정신적인 재정비에 나선다. 그동안 부상으로 인한 어려움을 겪었던 그는 투어 무대에서 다시금 분위기를 전환하고 경기력을 되찾겠다는 강한 의지를 내비쳤다.
브라운은 최근 몸 상태가 완벽하지 않은 상황 속에서 경기를 치르며 시련을 겪어야 했다. 하지만 그는 이번 기회를 통해 신체적 회복뿐만 아니라 마음가짐을 새롭게 가다듬는 '멘탈 리셋'에 집중하고 있다.
부상 여파를 털어내고 재기를 노리는 댄 브라운이 이번 멘탈 재정비를 바탕으로 DP월드투어에서 다시 한번 좋은 성적을 거둘 수 있을지 관심이 모아진다.
02Original (English) — DP World Tour
After an injury-disrupted 2026, Dan Brown is teeing up at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship this week ready to reset amid plans to close out his season on the DP World Tour.
The Englishman has been hampered by shoulder and wrist problems throughout the year, forcing him to withdraw from the Husqvarna British Masters and retire during the opening round of the BMW PGA Championship.
After taking last week off, Brown shared an update on Instagram, saying he hopes a run of events on the DP World Tour can help him get back on track.
He wrote: “Due to the recent health and injury issues I have made the difficult decision not to go back to the @pgatour for the rest of the 2026 season. Having had a few days to think about things and after Wentworth I don’t feel as though I’m in the right place mentally and physically to see things out the way I would’ve liked.
"Huge thank you to everyone in America who made me feel welcome, I’ve been fortunate enough to have played some amazing golf tournaments and made some new friends along the way.
"So with that I will be playing the rest of the year on @dpworldtour, a place in which I’m comfortable and can in turn surround myself with people who I feel can get me back on the right track.”
For the 31-year-old, who earned his dual membership on the PGA Tour through one of the ten cards available via the Race to Dubai at the end of the 2025 season, the decision is about giving himself the chance to reset after his injuries led to struggles with his mental health.
“It’s the first time I’ve faced injuries,” the two-time winner told the DP World Tour. “I think just mentally I really struggled to deal with the first time in my career where I'd not been able to play or practise to the extent where I want to.
“I've been fortunate enough to not really have had to worry about keeping a card or anything about that the last few years. And then obviously because I've kind of played half-injured for the majority of this year and not been able to put myself in a position that I would have liked to be in over on the PGA Tour, I think going back there probably wouldn't be a good idea. I'm normally a very chilled-out character, but probably for the first time in a long time, I've actually felt really stressed and struggled over the past few weeks.
“And now, I think just trying to help myself mentally, it felt like it was the right decision to come back and play the DP World Tour for the rest of my year. It’s more of a home and natural environment, I suppose, from what I've been used to in previous years. It's about looking after my mental health more than anything.”
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His issues with injury started as far back as January, when he arrived at the Sony Open in Hawaii ready to test out his game on the other side of the world.
In just the second round of his first event, Brown felt a new niggling pain in his wrist. He played through the pain, finishing in a tie for 19th, but it’s only been more recently that a scan revealed he had a build-up of fluid that had been there longer than he realised.
"At the start of the year, I think I had the fluid in my wrist but I'd not known,” he said. “There were weeks where I had to strap it up, but I still wanted to play. I never wanted to take a medical.
“I would have periods of rest so it would just die down and then I'd go back and go heavy on the practice and playing again. I just think it's something that’s in my makeup where if I feel like if I'm able to play and I can play through a bit of pain or whatever then I will. It’s probably to my detriment though because it got worse and worse.”
While he may have been struggling with injury, his profile was growing as his laidback attitude and sense of humour on social media gained him a new army of fans in the States.
But underneath his seemingly casual approach is the steel and hard work that has brought him two DP World tour wins and despite a difficult run of missed cuts in the first half of the year, Brown then made the cut in his first US PGA Championship.
He remained outwardly positive when he arrived at The Open, where he finished in a tie for 18th, yet that week a new injury arrived in the form of a frozen shoulder.
“I felt like my game was getting close again to being pretty good after like a decent result in The Open and then I got hit with a frozen shoulder and had to have an injection,” he said.
After a month out, Brown returned at the Nexo Championship and finished tied 16th, but his wrist problems resurfaced before migraines compounded matters at the BMW PGA Championship.
“I then felt like I got back fit again and played in Aberdeen, but then my wrist got really bad, and at the British Masters we had to go and have an injection and I had fluid drained out,” he continued. “The scan results came back, there was a lot of fluid, that I’d probably had since the very start of the year.
“It was all within the space of like a few weeks where I couldn't play as much as I wanted to and I couldn't play to kind of the belief that I know I can play at. And then down at Wentworth, I hadn't really hadn’t had much practice at all in the previous probably six or seven weeks. So I kind of went to Wentworth kind of knowing that I wasn't ready fitness-wise and with the limited practice basically, my game just didn't feel like I was there and then that week I think it maybe was a little bit of mental tolerance, stress-induced where I was getting like really bad migraines all week and health-wise I was really struggling.
“It felt like it was compounding one thing after another within the space of a few weeks. I felt like it was kind of getting back fit again and then something else happened and then going back to it again and then something else happened. I've basically played the whole year with limited movement in my shoulder, which obviously hasn't been ideal.”
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With it, Brown – a friendly, outgoing character - began to struggle with his mental health and ruminated over the decision over what to do with his season.
“I think it's just given me a bit of a kick in terms of just looking at my body and making sure that I can be healthy for as much as possible and for as long as possible,” he said. “I mean, I haven't really done much gym work or anything about that, but I'm certainly in the mind's head now where once the season is over, I'm going to... just try and be healthier.
“I have felt a lot of sympathy for guys who do get injured now, obviously after this experience. I think it's just almost being sat at home watching it on the TV and you're thinking I should be there. It’s quite a difficult thing.”
Faced with the dilemma and stress of trying to keep his card on the PGA Tour or trying to reset where he’s most comfortable, Brown decided to choose his mental health. And now, a couple of weeks removed from Wentworth and with that decision no longer hanging over his head, he’s ready to compete this week.
“Thankfully I'm finally in a position again where I feel mentally and physically kind of ready to go again,” he said. “I think I'm finally getting back to full fitness. I suppose all it takes really, I think all I kind of need now is just kind of two or three good rounds of golf to just confirm to myself that I am kind of back and ready.”