- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 1,170,354
- Reaction score
- 59
Bud Cauley birdied four holes in a five-hole stretch on the back nine at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley’s North Course to win the RBC Canadian Open for his first PGA Tour victory in 238 career starts and eight years after being involved in a single-car accident that derailed his career.
Cauley, 36, closed with 5-under 65 on Sunday in Caledon, Ottawa for a 72-hole total of 17-under 263 and two-shot win over Matt Fitzpatrick.
A three-time first-team All-American at the University of Alabama, Cauley was destined for stardom when he turned pro, and he recorded five top-15 finishes in 11 starts to earn PGA Tour status without needing Q-School. The RBC Canadian Open was among the tournaments wooing him with a sponsor invite when he joined the pay-for-play ranks, and Cauley finished T-13 in his tournament debut in 2011.
“I just remember the golf course being very hard. I remember Tommy Gainey playing well the first round and saying we should have a U.S. Open here, kind of forgetting that we were not in the United States,” said Cauley with a laugh.
But his career has endured more lows than highs. In 2014, he suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery. That was nothing compared to tragedy striking in June 2018. Cauley was a passenger in a single-car accident in Dublin, Ohio, during the Memorial Tournament. He sustained six broken ribs, a broken leg and a collapsed lung in the accident in which he was a passenger. He posted on Instagram that he felt “lucky to be alive.”
While he recovered and resumed his playing career, the injury to his ribs never fully healed. “Out of the blue, my (right) side started to hurt again,” he said.
When he visited the doctor, they determined to remove the plates in his chest during a surgery in April 2021 but they couldn’t take them out because the bone had grown on top of the plates. More surgeries followed for Cauley, who was honored in April as the Ben Hogan Award winner by the Golf Writers Association of America Award, an honor given annually since 1954 to an individual who has continued to be active in golf despite a physical handicap or serious illness, and they didn’t heal well. He missed more than three seasons as he suffered from a seroma, the abnormal accumulation of serous fluid in a dead space containing plasma and lymphatic fluid, and C.Diff.Colitis, an infection of the colon from antibiotics. “Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong,” he said.
With his optimism for a recovery nearly depleted, he conceded there were conversations with his wife that if this doesn't work out, what are some other things that he could do. But Cauley returned in 2024 after a long layoff, finished T-6 at the Players Championship last year to retain his card and finally can call himself a champion.
Cauley had his best day on Friday, shooting a bogey-free 63. He entered the final round trailing by two before making birdies on three of the first eight holes to make his presence felt. He added his named to a trophy dating to 1904 with four birdies in a five-hole stretch coming home. First he stuffed his tee shot at the 206-yard par-3 11th to 3 1/2 feet for birdie. He grabbed the lead with a chip-in birdie at 12 and then sunk a 14-foot birdie putt at 13. He nailed a 16-footer for good measure at 16 to stretch his lead to four shots. The stars finally were aligning for Cauley. He flared his tee shot at 16 way right but it bounced off a moving golf cart preventing it from going deep into the woods and wound up with the break of a lifetime, his ball ricocheting 20 yards left of where it seemed destined to finish and into the right rough. He walked away with a routine par. He made just his second bogey of the day at 17 but had enough cushion to taste victory at last.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Bud Cauley wins RBC Canadian Open after recovery from car crash
Continue reading...
Cauley, 36, closed with 5-under 65 on Sunday in Caledon, Ottawa for a 72-hole total of 17-under 263 and two-shot win over Matt Fitzpatrick.
You must be registered for see images attach
A three-time first-team All-American at the University of Alabama, Cauley was destined for stardom when he turned pro, and he recorded five top-15 finishes in 11 starts to earn PGA Tour status without needing Q-School. The RBC Canadian Open was among the tournaments wooing him with a sponsor invite when he joined the pay-for-play ranks, and Cauley finished T-13 in his tournament debut in 2011.
“I just remember the golf course being very hard. I remember Tommy Gainey playing well the first round and saying we should have a U.S. Open here, kind of forgetting that we were not in the United States,” said Cauley with a laugh.
But his career has endured more lows than highs. In 2014, he suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery. That was nothing compared to tragedy striking in June 2018. Cauley was a passenger in a single-car accident in Dublin, Ohio, during the Memorial Tournament. He sustained six broken ribs, a broken leg and a collapsed lung in the accident in which he was a passenger. He posted on Instagram that he felt “lucky to be alive.”
While he recovered and resumed his playing career, the injury to his ribs never fully healed. “Out of the blue, my (right) side started to hurt again,” he said.
When he visited the doctor, they determined to remove the plates in his chest during a surgery in April 2021 but they couldn’t take them out because the bone had grown on top of the plates. More surgeries followed for Cauley, who was honored in April as the Ben Hogan Award winner by the Golf Writers Association of America Award, an honor given annually since 1954 to an individual who has continued to be active in golf despite a physical handicap or serious illness, and they didn’t heal well. He missed more than three seasons as he suffered from a seroma, the abnormal accumulation of serous fluid in a dead space containing plasma and lymphatic fluid, and C.Diff.Colitis, an infection of the colon from antibiotics. “Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong,” he said.
With his optimism for a recovery nearly depleted, he conceded there were conversations with his wife that if this doesn't work out, what are some other things that he could do. But Cauley returned in 2024 after a long layoff, finished T-6 at the Players Championship last year to retain his card and finally can call himself a champion.
Cauley had his best day on Friday, shooting a bogey-free 63. He entered the final round trailing by two before making birdies on three of the first eight holes to make his presence felt. He added his named to a trophy dating to 1904 with four birdies in a five-hole stretch coming home. First he stuffed his tee shot at the 206-yard par-3 11th to 3 1/2 feet for birdie. He grabbed the lead with a chip-in birdie at 12 and then sunk a 14-foot birdie putt at 13. He nailed a 16-footer for good measure at 16 to stretch his lead to four shots. The stars finally were aligning for Cauley. He flared his tee shot at 16 way right but it bounced off a moving golf cart preventing it from going deep into the woods and wound up with the break of a lifetime, his ball ricocheting 20 yards left of where it seemed destined to finish and into the right rough. He walked away with a routine par. He made just his second bogey of the day at 17 but had enough cushion to taste victory at last.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Bud Cauley wins RBC Canadian Open after recovery from car crash
Continue reading...
