PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Bud Cauley had an early golf career that any player would embrace with a bear hug. The Floridian was among the best junior golfers in the country, went undefeated playing with Rickie Fowler in the Walker Cup and was a three-time All-American at Alabama. Turning pro in 2011 didn’t phase Cauley, who joined the likes of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as players who never had to endure Qualifying School.
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The bulk of Cauley’s professional path? Littered with disappointment and horrible breaks.
To understand Cauley’s journey is to know how truly meaningful his potentially career-altering round was at TPC Sawgrass on Saturday. On the layout at which he once stalked tour stars as a young fan—and in desperate need of FedEx Cup points to keep his card while playing on a major medical extension—the 5-foot-7 Cauley fought through the heavy, confounding winds to birdie the 15th through 17th holes, shot six-under-par 66 and became the solo clubhouse leader at 11 under par. Two hours after Cauley finished, J.J. Spaun polished off a 70 to hold a one-shot lead at 12 under.
“It’s definitely the best round I’ve played around here,” a smiling Cauley said in the aftermath, and that is saying a lot, considering he’s casually played the Stadium Course so often he couldn’t come up with a number for how many times.
A victory by Cauley on Sunday—which happens to be his 35th birthday—would be extraordinary. He is only competing this week because he was the first of three players to get into the field because of a withdrawal—in Cauley’s case, it was Lee Hodges pulling out on Monday.
U.S. Walker Cup teammates Bud Cauley and Rickie Fowler talk over strategy during the 2009 Walker Cup at Merion.
David Cannon
“It would be amazing,” Cauley said of possibly lifting the trophy. “It’s always been my favorite tournament every year. Even though I haven’t played my best when I’ve come here, just growing up and all the memories I have of being here, it’s always my favorite week, so it would mean a lot.”
As Cauley noted, he hasn’t fared well here as a pro, making only one cut in four previous Players starts. And the fact that Cauley is making only his fifth appearance here in the 14 years since he turned pro says a lot about how his life has gone.
He was a solid, though winless performer on the tour until June 2018, when Cauley was the passenger is a horrendous car accident in Dublin, Ohio, on the Friday of the Memorial Tournament. He suffered six broken ribs, a broken leg and collapsed lung. “Thankful to be alive,” Cauley said at the time.
Remarkably, Cauley returned the tour that fall, but in hindsight, that set him on the road to one setback after another. With bad pain in his right side, he stepped away from the tour in late 2020, and amid several unsuccessful surgeries, Cauley also had a seroma—a buildup of fluids—and an inflammation of the colon. “Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong,” he told PGATour.com in January 2024.
However, yet another surgery on his ribs and chest wall did work, and Cauley returned to play at last year’s WM Phoenix Open. He has been given 27 starts through the medical extension to earn enough FedEx Cup points to retain his card, and through 21 of those over 2024 and ’25, Cauley has only four top-25 finishes, giving him little wiggle room. A top-10 finish at the least would go a long way to being secure.
Not that Cauley’s knows it. “I haven’t looked at how many points I need,” he said. “I’ve always thought good golf will take care of all of that.”
Among Cauley’s best friends is 2021 Players winner Justin Thomas, who started at Alabama just after Cauley left Tuscaloosa. It was Thomas who was at Cauley’s side that first night in the hospital after the accident, and to this day, they spend a lot of time together with their families.
Bud Cauley lines up a putt on the 17th green during the third round of the Players Championship.
Jared C. Tilton
“I’m really happy and proud of him because I know he’s had a lot of time and thinking of is this going to ever get fixed, is it going to be cured, am I going to play golf again,” Thomas told PGATour.com last January. “I know how good Bud is and I know his raw talent. I just wanted to keep him positive and keep telling him because my thing I always said is it’s going to work out … just time will heal.”
That may be, but Cauley surely thought he’d achieve just as much as Thomas—the 15 tour wins, two PGA Championship titles and numerous U.S. team appearances. Cauley has no choice but to view it differently. And here’s perspective: When asked what he’d be doing this week if he wasn’t in the tournament, he said changing the diapers of his second child, who is just over a month old.
“I thought the car accident was life altering, and then we had a couple kids and that was really life altering,” Cauley said. “It makes you appreciate things a lot more, and yeah, as far as even my golf goes, it does put that in perspective. When I do have bad days, it’s not the end of the world. Just come out and try again tomorrow.”
