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Eight months ago, the first week of October 2024, J.J. Spaun walked the lush fairways of Country Club of Jackson in the Sanderson Farms Championship, trying to unlock the incomprehensible secret of winning golf. His stay in the Capital City was brief. He shot a first-round 75 and then withdrew from the tournament, presumably due to an injury.
“Presumably” is used here because Spaun’s withdrawal was not newsworthy enough to warrant even the briefest of investigations as to why he chose to drop out. After all, he ranked 98th on the tour’s earnings list at the time.
Rick Cleveland Truth is, Spaun has never really distinguished himself in Mississippi’s only PGA TOUR tournament. In five previous appearances here, he never finished higher than a tie for 36th place. That was in 2019. As recently as 2021, Spaun played so poorly he lost his PGA TOUR status. Until Sunday, Spaun was the epitome of the term “journeyman” pro.
No more. Never again. In a memorable display of perseverance and sheer grit, Spaun, all stockily built, 5 feet, 8 inches of him, won the U.S. Open. This was the ultimate test of golf, amid brutal conditions on surely one the most difficult golf courses ever designed: Oakmont Country Club, just outside Pittsburgh.
One by one, golf’s biggest names faltered: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McElroy, John Rahm, Xander Schauffler, Brooks Koepka, Colin Morikawa. Oakmont’s thick rough, deep bunkers, slick, undulating greens and severe weather conditions took no prisoners. The golf course was like a 7,500-yard torture chamber. I mean, who ever heard of a 301-yard par-3, a 530-yard par-4, a 667-yard par-5? The greens were more than undulating. They appeared to have hippos and elephants buried in shallow graves. The rough was such that the golfers sometimes prayed their golf balls would find one of the deep sand bunkers instead of the brutally thick primary rough.
In an era when it often takes 25-under par or better to win a PGA TOUR tournament, only one player bettered par for 72 holes: 34-year-old John Michael Spaun, who goes by J.J. Through some of the worst breaks imaginable, Spaun’s expression never changed. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He just stared intently. Once, when a perfectly struck approach shot hit the flagstick and bounced wildly back down the fairway, nearly 50 yards away, he stared in disbelief as an almost sure birdie turned into a bogey. One hole later, another Spaun shot hit a rake and nestled into the thick rough, resulting in another bogey. For a while there on the front nine, it was Murphy’s Law applied to golf. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. He bogeyed five of the first six holes. After leading or staying close to the lead for much of the tournament, Spaun turned into a chaser, which he has been for nearly the entirety of his career.
This time, he caught – and passed – everybody.
This was something akin to Mr. Ed beating Secretariat, Citation and Man O’ War. This was the old Kansas City A’s winning the World Series, the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. It happened. Once.
Sunday, you got the feeling it may happen again, perhaps many times, for J.J. Spaun. Maybe, he didn’t find the secret to winning golf eight months ago in Jackson, but he has found it somewhere along the way.
You may have heard his press conference afterward. Said Spaun, “It felt like, as bad as things were going, I just still tried to just commit to every shot. I tried to just continue to dig deep. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
Spaun refused to go away. It was like the story of his career. He kept his head up, retained his steely focus, kept plugging away. He birdied the last two holes, with the rain pouring and all the pressure one can face in golf on his shoulders.
Of all the most intriguing facts and statistics of the week at Oakmont, this one stands alone: In the long and storied history of the U.S. Open, dating back to 1895, there have been five men, including four legends, who have birdied the last two holes to win the championship. They are Ben Hogan (1953, Oakmont), Jack Nicklaus (1980, Baltusrol), Tom Watson (1982, Pebble Beach), Jon Rahm (2021, Torrey Pines) – and now, J.J. Spaun. What Spaun achieved against all odds at Oakmont was legendary, indeed.
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