Memorial Tournament: Bud Cauley makes a wonderful comeback 1 year after an alarming car accident

DUBLIN, Ohio – Bud Cauley arrived in town on Monday for the Memorial Tournament and slept in bed when the clock approached midnight. That is where he wished he had been on the Friday of last year's event when he sustained serious injuries as a passenger in a late-night car accident.

The experience was eye-opening, Cauley said, who has been trying to be more careful since the crash. The driver pleaded guilty in January to three felony counts of vehicles and a felony charge of driving a vehicle while drunk.

Cauley, 29, did not play the Memorial as if she were being chased by the accident, which is less than a mile from Muirfield Village Golf Club. Winless on the PGA Tour in 156 starts, Cauley shot a two-under-par 70 on Friday every weekend with a seven-under-137. He is right for the fifth, two strokes of the lead shared by Troy Merritt (66), Lee Kyoung-hoon (67) and Martin Kaymer (68).

"To have the best week so far, here is a bit ironic," said Cauley, who missed last year's score with scores of 77 and 76.

Stayed last year he with Justin Thomas, a close friend, in a guesthouse on the grounds of the former NHL defender James Wisniewski, who is Thomas & # 39; s acquaintance

Thomas had moved to the weekend so he was not in mood to socialize, but he encouraged Cauley, who had stayed in the city, to spend the rest of the evening with Wisniewski and his friends.

According to a report in The Columbus Dispatch, one of those friends, a surgeon around 30, got behind the wheel of his BMW just before 11 a.m. with three passengers: Wisniewski, Cauley and a 20-year-old pharmacist, Thomas Nichols. The driver, David Crawford, lost control of the car and swung off the road, hit a diver, flew into the air, spun into a tree, tipped over and landed in a ditch.

Cauley, who was behind the driver's seat, was beaten unconscious. He suffered a concussion, a fracture of the leg, six broken ribs and a collapsed lung. He woke up in the hospital without remembering what had happened.

"That was probably one of the most difficult nights I have ever had in my life," Thomas said, adding, "I felt as if it was somehow somewhat my fault. It was if, & # 39; What if something happens and he can't play golf again? & # 39; "

Two days after the accident, Cauley underwent surgery on his ribs. The surgeon assured Cauley that he could resume his golf career. "But," said Cauley, "he had never performed that operation on a golfer and really didn't know it."

Jack Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara, the tournament hosts, visited Cauley in the hospital. Nicklaus happened to be in the Bear's Club, a private course in South Florida, more than three months later, when Cauley made his first swing after the accident, a wedge shot that he flashed. He is playing this week on a sponsor exemption offered by Nicklaus.

Thomas stepped past the scene of the accident every week this week and noticed that there was no bark in the tree that hit the car.

Cauley has no desire to return to the scene of what he described as "the scariest night" of his life. "I haven't had any bad thoughts or anything like what happened last year," he said, "but I don't think I'll be driving to test it."

Cauley said that the Memorial has always been one of his favorite tournaments, but that he appreciated even more the ability to play it now. "If something like this happens to you, I think it could change for everyone," he said, adding, "I have certainly taken a lot of it, tried to learn from it and just do the best I can do.

Cauley wrote a letter to the sentencing judge who supported probation for the driver, Crawford, whose driver's license was withdrawn four years after his guilty plea. His medical license was suspended for six months

"He has a career . He has a family, & Cauley said. "It was clearly very unfortunate what happened. I didn't want anyone to be hit more negatively."

Of the people in the car, Wisniewski is the only one who has had contact with Cauley. If he could turn the clock back, Cauley said, he would have done it differently, including this: he would have played better so that he had no reason to be late on a Friday night of a tournament week.

"Obviously," Cauley said laughing, "playing well and making the cut is probably better for my health."