Golden delicious have such light colored bark in youth that I find them very prone to SW Winter Injury if that is what caused the bark damage. Since it was tree wrapped over the winter, it should have protected from this.

Either way, your photo shows good callus tissue forming around the wound and it should close the wound off in 2 years. I think the tree will be fine. From my experience if the wounded bark is over 50% of the diameter of the trunk of a young tree then it is questionable on long term survivability. Since your wound is less than that, the tree should be fine.

Years ago I used to paint the trucks of young golden delicious with interior white latex paint watered down. That would work too for winter bark protection.

No worries..it's healing in nicely...make sure to put the wrap back on for winter...keeps it protected from rodents eating bark.

Thanks all for the responses. I feel better about it now!

Here is a photo of my golden delicious. How does the shape/structure look? I think it's a good looking little tree. I've worked a lot to get horizontal branching

Structure looks very good as does leaf color. Tree looks very well.