Former KU golfer and current PGA player Gary Woodland, left, and former KU golf coach Ross Randall spectate at Alvamar Country Club Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009.

Winter Garden, Fla. — It took six difficult rounds, but Gary Woodland is back on the PGA Tour.

The former Kansas University standout carded rounds of 71, 68, 69, 71, 67 and 71 at the PGA Tour Q-School that ended Monday. He finished at 417, good for a tie for 11th place out of more than 150 golfers at the Orange County National Golf Center.

The top 25 earned PGA Tour cards for 2011. The next 50 were exempt on the Nationwide Tour.

Woodland, 26, also earned $25,000 with the 11th-place finish. Billy Mayfair won the tournament at 411.

All the more impressive is that Woodland played his first round and carded a 71 less than 24 hours after having a root-canal procedure.

It was a cold and windy environment in Winter Garden, with temperatures in the 40s and wind gusts up to 30 mph.

“The U.S. Open (2009) was really cold, and I was first out, and it hurt,” Woodland told Rex Hoggard of thegolfchannel.com. “But now it feels fine. It took me almost a year to start feeling healthy again.”

Monday was the second time Woodland earned his Tour card through Q-School. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder in August 2009. Woodland made a comeback this year, but failed to convert his eight medical-exemption starts into a Tour card, so he had to go through the process again this week.