Who is Bud Cauley? Meet the PGA Tour player contending at The Players who was ‘thankful’ to survive serious car accident seven years ago

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Bud Cauley finished the third round of the Players Championship in second position, one shot behind 54-hole leader J.J. Spaun.

And whether he wins or not, he will remain one of the stories of the tournament due to the obstacles he has overcome in recent years.

Cauley suffered major injuries in a car accident seven years ago which disrupted his promising PGA Tour career, so it’s great to see him in contention at TPC Sawgrass.

The Golfing Gazette tells you everything you need to know about Players Championship contender Bud Cauley.

• READ MORE: Major-winning PGA Tour player splits from his caddie after disappointing performance at the Players Championship

Bud Cauley age, Instagram and more personal details

William Carl “Bud” Cauley III was born in Daytona Beach, Florida on March 16, 1990. He’s five feet, seven inches tall (1.70 meters) and weighs 150 pounds (68 kilograms).

The 34-year-old was home schooled by his parents and picked up golf at an early age. He decided to play for the college team at the University of Alabama – the same school as good friend Justin Thomas.

You can find Cauley on Instagram @budcauley and on X (formerly Twitter) @BudCauley. He has just over 27,000 followers on both social media platforms.

Bud Cauley car accident and injuries

Cauley was involved in a serious car accident after Friday’s round at the Memorial Tournament in June 2018.

He suffered six broken ribs, a fractured left leg and collapsed right lung in the crash and since admitted to the PGA Tour that he was “so thankful to be alive”.

Cauley actually returned to the Tour later that year and played the following two seasons before he started to feel pain in his right side.

Doctors could not remove the plates in his chest that were causing the pain and he ended up having multiple surgeries, which did not go well.

Plenty more went wrong for Cauley over the next few years as he missed both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons through injury.

Bud Cauley PGA Tour career so far

Cauley qualified for the US Open during his junior year at Alabama and made his professional debut at the major on June 16, 2011.

He made the cut at his first four PGA Tour events, including a top-five finish at the Viking Classic, and joined Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson on the list of players to skip Q-School.

Cauley’s only professional victory came at the 2014 Hotel Fitness Championship on the Web.com Tour and he has never won on the PGA Tour.

He was awarded a Major Medical Exemption in 2023 after missing so long through injury, with 27 starts to score 391.55 FedEx Cup points.

The Players Championship represents the sixth-last event of Cauley’s 27. A top-10 finish at TPC Sawgrass would be enough to keep his PGA Tour card.