In August 2025, Tommy Fleetwood landed his first PGA Tour win at the 164th attempt. He did in real style too, winning one of the biggest, and certainly richest events of them all, the Tour Championship. The likeable Southport golfer, who has been as high as number three in the world rankings in recent months, had gone very close to winning several times previously. He had also set several unwanted records for the most prize money on tour without getting over the line.
Bud Cauley is not at the same level as Ryder Cup star Fleetwood and probably never will be. The 36-year-old from Daytona Beach, Florida, had not suffered narrow defeats in a host of majors and other events. And, while he is lucky enough to have made a decent living playing the game he loves, his golfing career has been up and down.
Earlier in his career, in 2012, he ended the year as the world number 67 but he has spent much of the time since then in the golfing wilderness, well outside the top 100. However, he now finds himself at a career-high mark of number 40 in the Official World Golf Ranking. And that is because on the 15th of June 2026, Cauley finally won his first PGA Tour event.
If at First you Don’t Succeed, Try, Try… 239 Times More!
| Position | Player | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Par Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bud Cauley | 69 | 63 | 66 | 65 | -17 (263) |
| 2 | Matt Fitzpatrick | 67 | 68 | 66 | 64 | -15 (265) |
| 3 | Viktor Hovland | 68 | 69 | 64 | 65 | -14 (266) |
| =4 | Jimmy Stanger | 65 | 67 | 68 | 67 | -13 (267) |
| =4 | Brice Garnett | 65 | 67 | 67 | 68 | -13 (267) |
| =4 | Jesper Svensson | 66 | 65 | 68 | 68 | -13 (267) |
| =4 | Jackson Suber | 66 | 65 | 66 | 70 | -13 (267) |
| =8 | Aldrich Potgieter | 66 | 67 | 70 | 65 | -12 (268) |
| =8 | Ryan Fox | 66 | 66 | 68 | 68 | -12 (268) |
| =8 | Sudarshan Yellamaraju | 69 | 66 | 65 | 68 | -12 (268) |
Fleetwood’s run of tournaments without a win pales into insignificance next to Cauley’s. William Carl Cauley III, to use his full name, did not get to pick up a winner’s cheque on the PGA Tour until the 239th time of asking. Cauley’s win was not quite at the same level as Fleetwood’s either. That said, the Canadian Open is certainly a prestigious tournament.
Behind The Open and the US Open, it is the third-oldest tournament in the world (that has run continuously). In the past, it has been won by Rory McIlroy (twice), Dustin Johnson, Jim Furyk, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman and, going back even further, Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer and Byron Nelson. And now we can add Bud Cauley’s name to that list.
The former University of Alabama student shot a total of 263, which was 17 under par, to win by two shots from Matt Fitzpatrick. The victory earned him very easily the biggest payday of his career, a cool $1,764,000. As well as Fitzpatrick, a number of Europe’s finest had strong weeks, with Viktor Hovland third, three behind Cauley, and Fleetwood finishing tied 11th on 11 under, despite starting the final round just a shot behind the eventual winner.
A Popular and Deserved Win
The number of tournaments it took Cauley to finally land a win meant he was a popular victor. However, it was an emotional day for bigger reasons too. Almost exactly eight years before landing his maiden PGA title, Cauley was involved in a very serious road traffic accident.
The golfer, who had previously been the world’s number one junior player, was a passenger in Dublin, Ohio, and suffered a range of injuries. He had a collapsed lung, broke six ribs and fractured his left leg, with the driver, who was over the alcohol limit, and other passengers also injured.
Perhaps surprisingly, such severe injuries only kept him out of the game for a few months. He was back playing by October of the same year. He had missed the cut at the Memorial (in Dublin) just before the crash happened. That was the 22nd week of the tour year, and the result left him ranked 141st.
He returned in week 40 at the Safeway Open, by which time he had dropped to 183 in the world. He performed pretty well on his return, all things considered, and tied for 46th. Four weeks later, he played again and did even better, tying for 10th at the Shriners.
However, over the next few years, he was only able to play sporadically, and while he was able to compete in a reasonable number of events, a lot of missed cuts meant he could never build any momentum. Since the crash, he had suffered pain in his ribs and it was inhibiting his movement and game.
Worse was to come, though, with the pain meaning he stepped away from golf to try and get to the bottom of things. He had undergone a number of surgeries, but various complications occurred, including colonic inflammation and a buildup of fluid around one of the surgical wounds.
In the end, Cauley was pretty much unable to play golf for the best part of four years. During that time, naturally, he wondered if he would ever be able to play again. He did not compete professionally in 2021, 2022 or 2023, but since 2024 has slowly been rebuilding his career. Decent results in 2025 saw him climb back into the world’s top 100, and he has been a consistent performer for the past year or so.
His win in Canada is a victory for persistence and never giving in. It was wholly deserved, and it will be interesting to see if he can maintain that sort of level in the weeks, months and years ahead.