Justin Thomas desperately wants Bud Corey to win the player.
“Bad will do something really, really weird to win today,” Thomas said after his final round with the player.
“I probably wanted it to be too bad. I was saying [my wife] Last night, Jill seemed like a nervous parent. I just want him to play very badly. And it's a big step, a big, big moment. There's a lot of golf left. He's not on the start he wanted.
Corey, who played with Thomas at Alabama University, fired a 6-under 66 on Saturday and entered the final round with one stroke from JJ Spaun's lead at TPC Sawgrass. Corey, a Jacksonville native, looked a bit shaky on Sunday, posting 2 over 38 on his front nine. The PGA Tour then stopped playing due to weather. Currently, Cauley, who has a three-stroke behind Rory McIlroy, plays in the final group with Spaun and the 2009 US Open Champion Lucas Glover.
But Cauley's victory is the ultimate red story as he has gone through hell over the past decade. Hours after missing a cut at the 2018 Memorial Tournament, Kowley was in a terrible car accident. He had immediate surgery to repair six fractured ribs, fractured legs and folded lungs.
“It all happened very quickly. It was just that – it was a lot,” Thomas said of the night.
“Yeah, I wanted to be there to see how my friends were doing, but it was just a wild, crazy, weird, terrible night. I wanted to go see him.”
Thomas visited him that night at the hospital, and then Kowley missed four months and returned that fall with the Safeway Open. He continued to play for several more years, but in the fall of 2020 the pain on his side began to plague him.
That discomfort was caused by an accident in June 2018.
“I went and saw a few doctors. They thought it might be one of the plates I had on my chest. So I went to remove the plate. [in April 2021]and they couldn't put them out as the bones grew on them,” Corey said at the WM Phoenix Open in February 2024.
“So they backed me up and said, 'I think we're fine, we've taken out a little scar tissue, you're fine.' Then, 12 days later, the incision opened. I'm just standing in the house [my wife] Christie removes her shirt, “Your shirt is a little wet.” There is a hole on the side of my chest. ”
Corey immediately went to the emergency room, where another operation awaited him.
Unfortunately, his incision did not heal well, leading to more trips to the operating room. These complications kept him out of the game from 2021 to the end of 2023. He then returned to the PGA Tour at TPC Scottsdale last year, where he described his situation as “all confusion.”
“Man, he's just going through a lot,” Thomas said Sunday.
“He's got a lot of injuries, he's fought a lot of ups and downs and madness. I'm happy to take him here and perform him again and see him again. I'd love to see him finish strong here and see him have a chance in the last hole.”
When they were young on the PGA Tour, Thomas and Courley lived together in Jupiter, Florida for three years, practicing and wandering around each other every day.
“When he was going through it all, he was just trying to be a friend, not to mention the peeps here for anyone,” Thomas added Sunday.
“Yeah, we tried to keep his spirit as long as possible because it's pretty difficult to do that.”
Ten years ago, Cauley was the upcoming PGA Tour star with a view to glory. However, thanks to these wild situations, he has not yet won the PGA Tour. His only professional victory took place on the 2014 Corn Ferry Tour.
However, a victory at TPC Sawgrass will change that. And if Cowley can go up and down for Burley on par 5 No. 11 after his resume of play, he reenters the conversation, hiding just two strokes. All he needs is a chance. Because Corey proves himself a fighter. And if he succeeds, Thomas is there by his side, and only knows what to celebrate and do to God.
Jack Mirco is a golf staff writer who plays SB Nation. Follow him with x @jack_milko.
