PGA Tour player Bud Cauley finds triumph amid tragedy in return to Memorial Tournament

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PGA Tour player Bud Cauley finds triumph amid tragedy in return to Memorial Tournament
DUBLIN, Ohio – Experiencing a promising career almost end in a car accident is not what most people would say was the best thing ever to happen to them, but even triple bogeys are blessings if they lead to better results down the road.
Seven years ago, on June 1, 2018, Bud Cauley did not triple-bogey as much as get triple-bogeyed. His life bounced out of bounds less than a mile from Muirfield Village Golf Club and within hours of the completion of the second round of the Memorial Tournament.
Cauley, then a 28-year-old member of the PGA Tour, had missed the cut at the Memorial earlier in the day when, just after 11 p.m., he climbed into the back seat of a 2014 BMW driven by Dublin surgeon David Crawford. Two other passengers, Tommy Nichols and former Blue Jackets defenseman James Wisniewski, joined Cauley and Crawford for the ride.
Within seconds of accelerating, Crawford lost control of the vehicle while driving north on the 5000 block of Muirfield Court, which is only a couple of long par-5s from the golf course. The car went off the right side of the road and hit a culvert before going airborne into a tree, then hit several smaller trees, crossed a driveway and landed in a ditch.
All three passengers suffered serious injuries. Cauley sustained a collapsed lung, five broken ribs and a fractured lower left leg. Wisniewski also broke several ribs. Crawford pleaded guilty to OVI and three counts of vehicular assault, received 2½ years of probation and had his license suspended for four years.
It wasn't pretty, but the end result was beautiful.
'It's kind of funny, honestly,' said Cauley, who is tied for 11th at the Memorial following a four-year absence caused by complications from his injuries. "I met my wife sorta because I was in that car accident. I was home in Florida recovering from the surgery and that's when we met.
'The worst thing that's ever happened to me led to me meeting my wife, then getting married and we have two kids now. The worst things that happened to me led to the best things that happened to me. I wouldn't change it if I could.'
If everything happens for a reason, Cauley's reason is pretty special. From bachelor to horrific accident to surgery to engagement to marriage to fatherhood.
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Long, hard road to healing lasted three years for Bud Cauley
Not that the journey has been easy. Cauley recovered relatively quickly from his original injuries, or so he thought, returning to Dublin to tie for ninth at the 2019 Memorial. He played again in 2020, finishing tied for 44th.
Then it began.
'I just made one swing and it started to hurt,' he said, recalling the moment in 2020 when he felt pain near his ribs.
Something wrong was happening with the four metal plates over his ribs. Complications from surgery ensued, and two surgeries later his career came to a screeching halt.
'We started the process of trying to figure out what was wrong,' he said. 'I tried everything, any treatment I could do. My ribs were fine. It was just the muscles around it. And that took me three years.'
Three years of never swinging a club. Instead, 36 months of getting steroid injections, platelet-rich plasma therapy and amniotic fluid injections. Progress was slow, to the point Cauley wondered if he might need to begin looking for a new career.
'Three years is a long time,' he said. 'Your optimism starts to fade a little bit. My wife (Kristi) came through. I would get disappointed and think, 'I can't do this anymore. I can't get stuck with another needle.' And after a couple weeks of that she would give me the encouragement to try again.'
Finally, Cauley visited the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, where doctors used a needle filled with saline solution, a procedure called hydrodissection, to separate layers of muscle scar tissue near his ribs.
'That allowed the muscle to work better, and that's what allowed me to start swinging a golf club again,' he said.
During the long three years, tour player Justin Thomas kept a close eye on Cauley's progress. Both played college golf at Alabama, and Thomas was best man in Cauley's wedding.
'A terrible, terrible night and week,' Justin Thomas recalls
'He's one of my best friends in the world and it was a terrible, terrible night and week,' Thomas said of the accident, which included a fateful twist. Thomas, who was staying at Wisniewski's home during the Memorial, chose not to join the group, opting to rest up for the final two rounds of the Memorial.
Thomas was Cauley's biggest cheerleader on tour when his friend began his golf comeback in January 2024. Cauley had 26 starts to compile enough FedEx points to retain his tour card, and got it done with five events to spare when he tied for sixth at the 2025 Players Championship, allowing him entry into the remaining tournaments this season.
'He's so good and so talented,' Thomas said. 'He's got one of those games that can just play out here for so long and can win out here, and he's showing that this year.'
The accident feels like forever ago to Cauley, but that doesn't mean it is lost to time.
'It was the scariest moment of my life, so of course when I come back here I think about it,' he said.
But negative thoughts always quickly change from terrible to terrific.
'It makes you think,' he said. 'Life honestly couldn't be any better right now. Obviously, what happened was awful, and you just have to move on. What happened changed my perspective, just being grateful to be able to play golf, and realizing how lucky you are when you find something you really enjoy doing and have the opportunity to do that every day. That's not something everyone gets to do.'
But it goes deeper than that for the 35-year-old.
'My life changed while I was hurt,' he said. 'When I got in the car accident I was single, then getting married and having our first son gave me a nice perspective change, that golf is not the most important thing in my life anymore. I have a family now.'
From worst to best. Hard to top that comeback story.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at [e-mail] and on X.com at@rollerCD. Read his columns from the Buckeyes' national championship season in "Scarlet Reign," a hardcover coffee-table collector's book from The Dispatch. Details at OhioState.Champs.com