All eyes were on Rory McIlroy on Sunday evening in the climactic moments of the Players Championship.
Those of fans onsite. Those of fans at home. Even those of some of McIlroy’s fellow competitors.
Among them: Bud Cauley, who played in the final threesome alongside Lucas Glover and J.J. Spaun. Sunday was not Cauley’s day. By the time he arrived on the par-5 16th hole, he was three over for his round, which had dropped him back to eight under for the week — too far back to be a serious threat, especially after any real chance of an eagle at 16 evaporated when he tugged his second shot into grabby rough left of the green.
Then came another hiccup.
As Cauley was striding toward the 16th green to play his third shot, his attention wandered to the adjacent par-3 17th where McIlroy — then the leader by one — was preparing to hit his tee shot into the iconic island green. Peering to his right, Cauley watched McIlroy’s wedge shot land just left of the flag and spin 11 feet below the hole, hard against the collar. What Cauley didn’t see, however, was another ball, that of Glover’s, which was directly in Cauley’s path — and, yep, soon enough directly below Cauley’s right foot.
In a goof you don’t often see at this level of the game, Cauley had stepped on his playing partner’s ball, a moment captured by NBC’s cameras and which surely left many viewers at home wondering, Uhh…what now?
Not all the rules of golf are simple, but how to proceed when your ball is moved by an outside influence is straightforward enough.
If your ball is moved by a force such as an animal, spectator or, say, your playing partner in the final round of the Players Championship, there is no penalty to anyone. Simply replace the ball as close as possible to its original location and play on. (If a ball is moved by a natural force, such as wind, water, or gravity, you usually play the ball from its new location without penalty.)
If Cauley was rattled by the gaffe, it didn’t show.
He made par at 16 then stuffed his tee shot at 17 to 6 feet and made birdie. After another par on the par-4 home hole, Cauley signed for a two-over 74 — not the finish he wanted but still a memorable week for the 251st-ranked player in the world who had made just one Players cut in four previous attempts.
“I just couldn’t get it going,” he said after his round. “I’d follow up a good hole with a bad hole, and like I said before, just unfortunately too many mistakes.”
And one literal misstep.