Why J.J. Spaun winning the U.S. Open was actually awesome
OAKMONT, Pa. — One by one, they made their way over the bridge, down the stairs and into the scoring area. Their shoes and ankles were covered in mud. Their polo shirts soggily suctioned to their bodies. Their eyes glazed over from the things they'd seen. My goodness, these men wanted to win the U.S. Open with every bit of their being, to finally win a major championship and make this ugly, rainy day worth the battles behind them.
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And then they watched those dreams fade away, as J.J. Spaun made his a reality.
Tyrrell Hatton was mid-interview as the putt rolled in, seeing a television screen out of the corner of his eye. The often aggravated, ornery Englishman slowed his words as he saw it, and his scowl turned to a smile of calm joy.
'He's holed it,' Hatton said. 'Unbelievable. What a putt to win. That's incredible.'
Viktor Hovland was there on the green, still fighting with hope as it went in. His dreams were shattered right in front of him, yet Hovland immediately put his putter down and clapped with pure appreciation. He even slapped the man's hand like a first-base coach celebrating a home run.
Robert MacIntyre was leaning back in a scoring area chair, hoping to the golfing gods for a J.J. Spaun disaster. He was the clubhouse leader with a chance to steal the U.S. Open until Spaun took the lead. If Spaun could just bogey 18, they'd go to a playoff. MacIntyre watched too as it fell, and the 28-year-old Scot lifted his arms and exaggeratedly clapped his hands high in the air. Pure respect. Well Done. 'Wow,' he mouthed to himself.
Because everybody who witnessed what J.J. Spaun did on that 18th green Sunday at Oakmont understood they had just seen what this whole damn thing is about. They saw the reasons to still believe. The payoff for all the pain. The fact that maybe, just maybe, anybody can win a U.S. Open. And that mattered so much more than feeling sorry for themselves.
What happened was Spaun — a journeyman, a grinder, a stocky, 5-foot-8, 34-year-old golfer who nearly lost his PGA Tour card a year ago — came out of a rain delay four shots behind the lead after a disastrous start. And Spaun just played. Played so well that he went to that 18th green at the toughest course in America with cold, foggy rain beating down, needing just a two-putt for a major championship.
Instead, Spaun went ahead and made the 64-foot, 5-inch putt to win the whole thing by two shots.
WHAT A PUTT!!!!
J.J. SPAUN WINS THE U.S. OPEN!!!! pic.twitter.com/EWdYQeDAzF
— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 16, 2025
There are times at sporting events when you become fundamentally aware that it's OK to feel. That we're all just people working jobs and traveling around, hoping to get a little bit further, and a little bit further, and hoping it all works out in the end. You don't get what you want often enough, and the cynicism can build in. Even watching golf. Oh, Scottie Scheffler wins again? Bryson DeChambeau? Cool. More superstars are getting what they want. But now and then, you witness Spaun launching his putter into the air in complete disbelief that he — he — really did the thing at the one place designed to bend golfers to its will. And you remember to feel.
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Because J.J. Spaun is not your typical U.S. Open champion.
He's a Lakers fan who was asked about his Kobe Bryant moment and compared himself to Derek Fisher. He recited a Tiger Woods story about playing in U.S. Opens, but not because Woods talked to Spaun himself. No, he just got the story secondhand from Max Homa.
He is a mixed-race guy from California who started playing golf without any formal lessons, learning by hitting balls into a net his dad set up in the garage. He was a walk-on at San Diego State and earned his way onto the team before becoming an All-American. He grinded on mini tours for four years, and even when he made it to the PGA Tour, he simply fought to survive for half a decade. He broke through with a 2022 win at the Valero Texas Open, but within two years was missing 10 cuts in five months.
'Last year in June, I was looking like I was going to lose my job, and that was when I had that moment where, if this is how I go out, I might as well go down swinging,' Spaun said.
There was a shift that summer. For so long, it was about climbing, climbing, climbing. Aspirations. Goals. Bitterness. Slights. Yet at 33, he understood he was OK. He had a wife, Melody, and two kids under age five. He'd spent eight years on the PGA Tour. He had made it in life. So golf did not need to be everything. The motto became: Let the golf be golf.
For so long, he had heard others talk in those sorts of self-improvement slogans and didn't grasp them. Sure, stay focused. Stay calm. Got it. He had a family, but that still meant stress to provide for them. He still allowed golf to be his identity. He'd leave close calls in Hawaii and Memphis distraught, feeling a 'crawl-into-a-hole-and-die kind of a feeling because it was just so embarrassing. I was just afraid to feel embarrassed again.' But last June, when he had to come to terms with the possibility this whole ride could end, it shifted.
'If this is how I'm going to go out,' he said, 'then this is it.'
And the golf got better. Three top 10s and five top 30s in six starts to end the season. Good performances in the fall. He kept his tour card, kept the success going into 2025, and got himself into signature events like the Players Championship. And there in Ponte Vedra, the possibilities were able to shift. No, it wasn't life or death anymore, but he could dream a little bigger.
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That day, so much like this Sunday, he went into the final round with a lead and struggled. Three bogeys before an afternoon rain delay forced him to reset. Everyone assumed the tournament was Rory McIlroy's until Spaun came out of the delay and birdied 14 and 16 to force McIlroy into a playoff. He didn't win, but he understood he could.
So on Father's Day, entering it one stroke behind leader Sam Burns, he opened with an ugly bogey. Then, he caught one of the worst breaks imaginable on No. 2 with a perfect approach that bounced off the flagstick, went across the green, and rolled down the steep front for an eventual bogey. He bogeyed five of his first six holes for a front-nine 40. NBC stopped showing his shots. He was done for.
Until another weather delay.
As he went back to the driving range to prepare for the restart, his (very new) coach, Josh Gregory, told him, 'Stop trying so hard.' Just chill, the team told him. Because in any world, J.J. Spaun should not be disappointed he's four back at a major championship. When he went to the ninth tee to restart, he smoked one in the fairway and knew. He had a chance.
While everybody around him collapsed into oblivion, Spaun made a 40-foot birdie on 12, a 22-foot birdie on 14, and when he went to the famous drivable par-4 17th hole, he was tied for the lead. There on 17, he hit a shot so good it's only unfortunate history will remember the winning putt on 18 more. He landed the uphill green, hitting a 309-yard drive to 18 feet from the tight pin. He two-putted for birdie, went to the 18th tee with the lead and needing a par to win.
And he launched a perfect drive into the fairway. He stepped off the tee with his chest pumping in and out like a cartoon, the adrenaline surely flowing in excess. From the fairway, a bogey was less likely. He could put his approach safely on the left of the green, as he did. He could, as most would assume, two-putt for par and go off into the foggy sunset.
But by Sunday night, J.J. Spaun had learned to dream a whole dream.
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'I didn't want to play defensive,' he said. 'I didn't know if I had a two-shot lead. I didn't want to do anything dumb trying to protect a three-putt or something.'
Hovland's putt before his showed him the exact line. Spaun had his guide. He had his line. And Spaun launched that 64-foot, 5-inch putt up the hill and let it go.
And the entire golfing world — from the gallery, to the workers, to the golfers hoping he missed — watched something special happen in front of them. They watched as the putt fell, and they remembered what this was all for.
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