The captain told him to enjoy this, so that's exactly what J.J. Spaun plans to do
After a whirlwind U.S. Open victory, things finally settled down for J.J. Spaun around 2 a.m. Monday. He didn't leave the gates of Oakmont Country Club until about an hour past midnight, and upon arriving back at his hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, he took a quick shower and then settled into bed to start flipping through the hundreds of messages that had queued in his phone.
Comedian George Lopez, Dodgers star Mookie Betts, sportscaster Scott Van Pelt; all had words of congratulations for the newly minted major champion.
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But the most impactful message came Tuesday from Keegan Bradley.
Bradley remembers his major-championship breakthrough well. He was just a 25-year-old rookie when he captured the 2011 PGA Championship in a playoff. He recalls returning home and going out to a local restaurant, and 'I could feel that people knew who I was. I had never felt that.' And it made him so uncomfortable that he put his Wanamaker trophy in his closet, out of sight.
And so, as Spaun was whisked around New York City for a daylong media tour, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain offered this piece of advice: Enjoy it.
'There's always another tournament,' Bradley said Wednesday ahead of the Travelers Championship. 'He's going to tee it up here. He bogeys the first hole, he's going to be bummed out. It's the way golf is. You win the Stanley Cup, you get to enjoy it for months on end. … For me, everything happened fast. I had been on the Tour for only a year. I didn't know what any of these media tours were. I'm sure J.J. is going through that. My advice to him was to try to sit back and enjoy it and soak it all in.'
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Spaun's media obligations, which included an appearance on NBC's 'Today,' lasted until mid-afternoon. He then hopped in a car up to Cromwell, Connecticut, getting in around 8 p.m. Spaun's eight hours of sleep Tuesday night, were as much as he got the previous two nights combined.
'I'm not like fully in the clouds still, but we're getting a little below the ceiling,' Spaun said during his Wednesday presser, which immediately followed Bradley. 'Yeah, it's been a whirlwind. Everything that the aftermath of this whole championship has been so crazy but so much fun, and all these doors opening, it's stuff that you don't expect ever really to happen in your career. … I'm super grateful to have won the championship and to be given this experience. It's something I'll never forget obviously for the rest of my life. I guess I'm a part of history now.'
Sure, there will come a day soon when Spaun will be able to sit on his couch, veg out and watch Sportscenter – his preferred way to relax. But for now, he's set to compete in the Travelers Championship, the year's final signature event.
Spaun has a special connection to the Travelers. In 2020, he won the Umbrella at 15½ Challenge, a closest-to-the-pin contest using the red, umbrella-shaped green that floats about 85 yards from land between the 15th and 16th holes. Spaun's victory earned him $10,000 for the charity of his choice, which he donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Two years earlier, Spaun had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes; he wouldn't find out until the following spring that he was misdiagnosed and was actually late-onset Type 1.
Andy Bessette, EVP and chief administrative officer of Travelers, broke down in tears when Spaun decided to donate to JDRF. Bessette, whose son, Chris, has Type 1 diabetes, is a longtime supporter of JDRF, and as Spaun navigated his diabetes journey, Bessette was an invaluable resource.
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'Hopefully, I can win the challenge again and donate some more money to JDRF,' Spaun said.
Toward the end of his presser, Spaun struggled to recall verbatim a Confucius quote that has served as inspiration. As he continued answering other questions, the PGA Tour media official conducting the press conference looked it up:
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but rising every time we fall.
'That's the one,' Spaun said. 'That's kind of, I feel like, my career.'
Spaun originally wanted to be a professional skateboarder. He walked on at San Diego State, where he became an All-American. He then earned just $850 his second season on the Canadian Tour and lost his card, only to win the tour's order of merit the following season. He graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour the following season. Four years later, he finished No. 185 in FedExCup points, though he maintained his PGA Tour status after the pandemic froze eligibility for an additional season. The following year he had to go to KFT Finals just to keep his card.
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Two years later, after figuring out his diabetes issues, Spaun won the Valero Texas Open for his first PGA Tour title, but just last year, amid another slump, he debated retirement before eventually cracking the top 100 in points.
The rest, as they say, is history. Spaun nearly won at Sony (T-3), and at Cognizant (T-2), and at The Players, where he fell in a playoff to Rory McIlroy. Now, he's a major champion, ranked a career-best eighth in the world rankings – and a surefire bet to make his first Ryder Cup team.
Spaun's U.S. Open win launched him to third in U.S. Ryder Cup points, much to the delight of Bradley.
'I think going to a course like Bethpage Black, the people are really going to be behind a guy like J.J. Spaun,' Bradley said. 'His story is incredible. He's a hard-working guy that's just building and building and building his whole career. To win the U.S. Open at Oakmont, in my eyes, is the pinnacle of major golf. It's as tough as you can get. I think he's a guy that people at Bethpage will really resonate with and a guy that on our team is the heartbeat. He's now the U.S. Open champion. That's a heavy burden to bear, but that's also a great thing to have on your team.'
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It's impossible to know yet just how Spaun will respond to winning the U.S. Open. He'll be running on adrenaline this week, at least. But soon, he'll be hit by his new reality.
McIlroy is still struggling to find motivation after completing the career grand slam at the Masters in April. Spaun's got a long way to go before he accomplishes something that monumental – if he ever does – but relatively, his inner-drive will be challenged, too.
'I definitely need to keep the hunger there,' Spaun said. 'I think I will have the hunger just because I want to continue to prove myself, but not prove myself to anybody other than myself, I feel like, and that's kind of been my biggest barrier throughout my entire career is just trying not to be so hard on myself and not ruining any sort of confidence that I've built from all these experiences on my journey as a golfer. As long as I keep that up, I think I'll continue to play well, and obviously winning the U.S. Open is going to be a huge boost to that sort of inner ego, I guess you could say, to keep that self-belief alive and burning.'
Spaun then mentioned Bradley's advice, on how easy it is to let all this fly out the window, to be quickly forgotten.
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And he certainly doesn't want to lose this feeling.
'Yeah, I need to enjoy this,' Spaun said. '… I'm planning to enjoy it next week, that's for sure, at least for next week.'
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