Cauley, Hoffmann two 2009 U.S. Walker Cup teammates showing their toughness a decade later

   This September will mark 10 years since the Walker Cup Match was staged at my favorite golf course in the world, the Hugh Wilson designed East Course at Merion Golf Club, shoehorned into a neighborhood in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township that those of us who grew up in heard referred to as Merion Golf Manor.

   The United States team, captained by Merion member George “Buddy” Marucci, who grew up in that neighborhood, hard by the seventh and eighth holes, rolled to a 16.5-9.5 victory over Great Britain & Ireland.

   And if you were there, or were lucky enough to cover it, as I was in a previous life with the Delaware County Daily Times, you’ve followed the fortunes of the young guys who joyously put their talents on display. They were amateurs then, but many of them, not surprisingly in the least, have gone on to successful professional careers.

   Of course, life is rarely a straight line, hardly ever, really. So, it was interesting to scan the results of last weekend’s Farmers Insurance Open, the PGA Tour stop in San Diego won by another guy who had a pretty good day at Merion’s East Course in 2013, Justin Rose, and see a couple of alumni from that 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team who played the weekend and who stared some big-time adversity in the eye in 2018.

   Bud Cauley finished strong Sunday at Torrey Pines, firing a final-round 67 that left him the group tied for 13^th at 11-under-par 277.

   The 28-year-old Alabama product was badly injured last June when the BMW in which he was riding was involved in an accident that left Cauley with a collapsed lung, a concussion, six broken ribs and a fractured left leg. He was coming off a missed cut in The Memorial in Dublin, Ohio.

   Somehow that litany of maladies did not prevent him from making a return to the PGA Tour, but you might have had a hard time convincing him that that was possible when he was laying in a hospital bed feeling like he had broken every bone in his body with a machine helping him breath.

   He has some metal in his body, shoring up all those broken ribs, but somehow he found he was still able to swing a golf club. Among Cauley’s playing partners at home in Florida as he started to play rounds of golf again were two of his teammates at Merion in 2009, Rickie Fowler and Peter Uihlein.

   And when the wraparound 2018-’19 PGA Tour season teed off in October, four months after the accident, Cauley was ready to go. A month later, in his second start, Cauley finished in the group tied for 10^th in the Shriners Hospital for Children Open in Las Vegas.

   Not sure which course Cauley played first at Torrey Pines, but he fired a 66. A second-round 70 got him inside the cut line. He struggled a little with a third-round 74, but the final-round 67 got him in the top 15. The $121,714 and change he earned gives Cauley $342,710 for the season.

   Fowler and Uihlein were two-thirds of the Oklahoma State connection on that U.S. Walker Cup team. The third Cowboy was Morgan Hoffmann. He’s 29 and in 2016, after years of a degenerating pectoral muscle that had doctors mystified, Hoffmann was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

   Hoffmann played only five times on the PGA Tour in 2018, so playing four rounds at Torrey Pines had to be pretty special. He posted a pair of 70s to make the cut, struggled to a 79 in the third round and matched par in the final round with a 72 that left him in 77^th and last place among the players who made the cut. Pretty sure he had the best result of players with muscular dystrophy.

   It’s not entirely clear how long Hoffmann will still be able to compete well enough to maintain his standing on the PGA Tour, but he’s certainly not taking this muscular dystrophy thing sitting down.

   He started the Morgan Hoffmann Foundation, dedicated to finding a cure for muscular dystrophy, last year. A pro-am and auction in August at Arcola Country Club in Paramus, N.J., not far from where Hoffmann grew up in Franklin Lakes, N.J., raised $1.5 million. Many of his PGA Tour pals, in town for the first stop of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the Northern Trust at nearby Ridgewood Country Club, were there to support him.

   Even after receiving the stunning diagnosis in late 2016, Hoffmann had a strong 2016-’17 season, making  the FedEx Cup Playoffs and earning nearly $1.3 million. It wasn’t until December of 2017 that he revealed that he had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. He has made nearly $5.9 million on the PGA Tour.

   A little Internet surfing reveals that she said yes when Hoffmann proposed to girlfriend Chelsea Colvard late last year. It doesn’t seem like he thinks anybody should be feeling sorry for him. And he’s in the field for this week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. I know I’ll be rooting for him.

   Cameron Tringale, a 31-year-old Georgia Tech product and another 2009 U.S. Walker Cup alum, missed  the cut at the Farmers with rounds of 71 and 72, his 1-under 143 two shots shy of making the weekend.

   Tringale has been a solid pro, earning nearly $10 million since first playing on the PGA Tour in 2010, including a $2-million year in 2014. But he too faced a little adversity when he started missing cuts at the end of the 2017-’18 season and found himself on the outside looking in when the FedEx Cup Playoffs got started.

   That meant a trip to the Web.com Tour Playoffs in hopes of salvaging his playing privileges for the 2018-’19 campaign. A clutch third-place finish in the Web.com Tour Championship at Atlantic Beach Country Club in Atlantic Beach, Fla. got the job done.

   Fowler, who was obviously the leader of that 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team at age 20, has been the star of the group. A clutch second-round 66 enabled him to make the cut at the Farmers. A pair of weekend 74s left him in the group tied for 66^th at 1-under 287.

   Fowler, who turned 30 in December, is often criticized as all flash, but even the most cursory look at his career would blow a hole into that sort of thinking. His runnerup finish to Patrick Reed at the Masters last spring was his eighth top-five finish in a major championship. When you get that close that many times, it’s just a matter of time before he kicks the door down.

   Fowler made $4.2 million in the wraparound 2017-’18 season, good for 17^th on the money list. His career PGA Tour earnings following the Farmers stands at $34.4 million. He is No. 14 in the World Golf Ranking – one spot behind his rival on the Great Britain & Ireland team in 2009, Tommy Fleetwood -- and his value as a team member, so evident at Merion 10 years ago, has made him a welcome addition to four U.S. Ryder Cup and two U.S. Presidents Cup teams.

   I came away from that 2009 Walker Cup thinking that Fowler and Uihlein were can’t-miss future stars. Uihlein’s victory in the 2010 U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay did nothing to discourage that kind of thinking.

   The 29-year-old Uihlein missed the cut at the Farmers with rounds of 73 and 69, his 2-under 142 total leaving him one shot out of the mix.

   Uihlein didn’t reach the PGA Tour right after his outstanding career at Oklahoma State. He spent five years honing his skills on the European Tour, winning the Madeira Islands Open on his way to Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year honors in 2013. Not the normal path, but it’s been done.

   He showed up occasionally in PGA Tour events and his victory in the Web.com’s 2017 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship at The Ohio State University’s challenging Scarlet Course was the opening he needed to finally get to show his stuff on a regular basis in the Big Show, the PGA Tour.

   And he was pretty solid in his first full year, earning just less than $1.8 million, good for 64^th on the money list and a trip to the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He made it all the way to the BMW Championship at Aronimink Golf Club and came up just short of earning a berth in the Tour Championship.

   Wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see Uihlein put it together some week in 2019 and get a bust-out first PGA Tour win.

   Another member of that 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team, left-hander Brian Harman, did not tee it up in the Farmers last weekend, but like Fowler and Uihlein, made it to the BMW Championship at Aronimink, adding a pretty successful 2017-’18 campaign on the PGA Tour to what has become a really solid professional career.

   The 32-year-old Georgia graduate – Harman turned 32 Saturday -- banged out a $2.7-million 2017-’18 campaign with a ruthlessly efficient eight top-10s and 22 cuts made in 25 starts. He is probably best remembered for his gritty tie for second in the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, but Harman has two wins and $14.5 million in earnings on the PGA Tour. He is a really good player.

   I stumbled across the name of Drew Weaver, also a member of that 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team, while posting about former Temple standout Brandon Matthews’ quest to remain eligible for the Web.com Tour in last month’s Q-School Final Stage at the Whirlwind Golf Club in Chandler, Ariz.

   I mentioned how the 31-year-old Virginia Tech grad had won The Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2007 with the screams of horror still echoing in his ears from the deadliest school  shooting in U.S. history at the Blacksburg campus less than three months earlier.

   Weaver will be exempt for the first portion of the 2019 Web.com Tour schedule. He is still battling. Seems like there was a lot of toughness on that Walker Cup team.

   I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the mid-am on that team, Nathan Smith, the 1994 PIAA champion as a sophomore at Brookville. Smith won the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s R. Jay Sigel Match-Play Championship for the sixth year in a row last summer.

   He had a U.S. Mid-Amateur title on his resume when he arrived at Merion in 2009. He would win three more and play on two more U.S. Walker Cup teams. Smith has taken his place among the great amateur golfers produced by Pennsylvania, including his captain at Merion, Marucci, and Sigel, Marucci’s mentor and the namesake of the PAGA match-play event that Smith has dominated.

   Maybe a Walker Cup captaincy lies in Smith’s future. It says here he’s certainly deserving of consideration. Just sayin’.

   A couple of other names in the Farmers field caught my eye.

   I devoted a lot of a similar post at this time last year to Michael Kim, the California product who was the low amateur at the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, where he finished tied for 17^th. Kim, a Torrey Pines High School product, missed the cut by two shots at the Farmers, rallying with a second-round 69 after opening with a 74.

   But the 25-year-old made the FedEx Cup Playoffs last season, a year highlighted by his first career PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic. He won just less than $1.4 million. I devoted a column to the college kid who was in 10^th place after three rounds at Merion in 2013. I’m not surprised to see him playing well.

   Then there is Delaware County’s adopted favorite son on the PGA Tour, Sean O’Hair. He added a second-round 69 to his opening 71 to make the cut at Torrey Pines. He struggled on the weekend and finished 76^th at 2-over 290.

   But O’Hair was coming off a tie for ninth in the Desert Classic, his 43^rd career top 10 on the PGA Tour. The 2017-’18 campaign wasn’t O’Hair’s best, but he grinded out $1.1 million in earnings and made the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

   The 36-year-old O’Hair struggled in back-to-back years earlier in his decade and twice, like Tringale did this year, battled his way through the Web.com Tour Playoffs to retain his playing privileges on the PGA Tour. And he’s still out there battling.

   Did somebody say Walker Cup? A couple of members of the 2017 U.S. team that rolled to a 19-7 victory over Great Britain & Ireland up the coast from Torrey Pines at Los Angeles Country Club played the weekend at the Farmers.

   Doug Ghim, the former University of Texas standout who was the low amateur at last spring’s Masters, fell back in the final round to finish tied for 20^th at 10-under 278.

   Ghim had himself a couple of pretty good weeks in the California sun two summers ago, finishing as the runnerup to Doc Redman in a really good final in the U.S. Amateur at Riviera Country Club and then going 4-0 in the Walker Cup Match.

   Braden Thornberry, the 2017 NCAA individual champion at Rich Harvest Farms as a sophomore at Mississippi, finished among the group tied for 52^nd at 4-under 284 in the Farmers.

   Ghim will be playing on the Web.com Tour in 2019 while Thornberry struggled at the Q-School Final Stage and will have to rely on sponsor’s exemptions to get starts on the PGA Tour and the Web.com Tour. But the kind of showings they had last weekend would seem to indicate that they’ll find a way to get to the Big Show on a regular basis before long.

   Of course, an alum of that spectacularly talented 2017 U.S. Walker Cup team already owns a PGA Tour victory. Former Texas A&M standout Cameron Champ won the Sanderson Farms Championship last fall which means he’s exempt on the PGA Tour for this season and all of next.

   Champ missed the cut at the Farmers with rounds of 75 and 71, but the bomber has already flashed his considerable ability in taking the Sanderson Farms at the Country Club of Jackson in Jackson, Miss.