OAKMONT, Pa. — As the sun started to set and the rain continued to fall, J.J. Spaun erupted into tears beside the 18th green — more waterworks on this wet, wet day — and one of the wildest U.S. Opens in recent years suddenly had one of its most unlikely champions.
Spaun mastered the greens, survived a Sunday storm, outmatched the game’s best and somehow conquered one of the toughest golf courses on the planet. Overlooked, underrated and left for dead midway through the final round, the 34-year-old had never before played Oakmont Country Club. But for four days and 72 holes, he looked right at home — steady, relaxed and taking everything this unforgiving, unrelenting course could throw at him.
Even a lengthy weather delay couldn’t deter him — if anything, he said it saved him. In a wild and wet final round, Spaun made a birdie on the 17th hole, breaking a twilight tie, and then drained a stunningly long birdie putt on the 18th to win the 125th U.S. Open for his first major title.
Despite carding five bogeys while shooting a disastrous 40 on the front nine, Spaun persisted, somehow posting a 72 on the day and finishing at 1 under par for the tournament to win by two strokes over Robert MacIntyre, who shot a sparkling 68 in the miserable conditions. Spaun was the only golfer in the tournament to finish below par — and the only man among the top 37 finishers to shoot a 40 on the front nine Sunday.
“I never thought I would be here holding this trophy,” he said during the trophy presentation. “I always had aspirations and dreams. I never knew what my ceiling was. I’m just trying to be the best golfer I can be.”
The win was a coronation of sorts for a talented golfer who struggled to break through and at times questioned his place in the sport. He had won just once on the PGA Tour. At this year’s Players Championship, he held the 54-hole lead but then lost to Rory McIlroy in a playoff. He was a long shot coming into the U.S. Open — his odds were listed at 120-1 at some sportsbooks — but he played with more confidence, skill and poise than any of the favorites.
And after three days of steady play — Spaun opened with a 66 and was the first-round leader — he saved the biggest fireworks for Sunday. His meandering 64-footer on No. 18 — the longest putt the tournament saw all week — meant he was just the fifth U.S. Open champion to close with back-to-back birdies.
“I tried to just continue to dig deep,” he said. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
Spaun entered the day tied for second at 3 under, trailing Sam Burns by a stroke. His Father’s Day got off to a rocky start when his 23-month-old daughter, Violet, came down with a stomach bug overnight. Spaun had to make an early-morning run to CVS for medicine before hitting the course.
“My wife was up at 3 a.m., and she’s like: ‘Violet is vomiting all over. She can’t keep anything down,’” Spaun said. “It was kind of a rough start to the morning. I’m not blaming that on my start, but it kind of fit the mold of what was going on — the chaos.”
When he finally hit the course, Spaun’s final round couldn’t have started any worse — bogeys on the first three holes and on five of the first six. On the second hole, his strong approach shot hit the flagstick and fired back 50 yards from the cup, as unlikely of a shot as any.
His tournament hopes seemed dashed. No U.S. Open champion had ever started the final round with three straight bogeys.
“I felt like I had a chance — a really good chance — to win the U.S. Open at the start of the day,” he said. “It just unraveled very fast.”
Spaun didn’t seem to calm down until a storm swept through the area and sent golfers and fans scrambling for shelter. With the leaders at the eighth tee box, play was suspended at 4:01 p.m. as rain drenched the course. At the time, Spaun was at 2 over and four shots behind Burns.
Before play resumed, Spaun tried to collect his thoughts. On the range, his short-game coach, Josh Gregory, told him he was trying too hard; he needed to relax. The delay lasted 1 hour 36 minutes — and Spaun looked like a different golfer when he returned to the course.
“I’m like, I’m done wearing those clothes,” he said. “I just needed to reset everything — kind of like start the whole routine over.”
As if the players hadn’t endured enough this week while playing the toughest tournament of the year, the rainy conditions turned Oakmont into a water park on the back nine. Pools accumulated, the rough went from nuisance to nightmare, and the tricky speed of the greens became impossible to read. Balls were wet, club faces were slick, and championship dreams were doused — for everyone but Spaun.
“All things being equal, it’s Sunday of the U.S. Open, one of the hardest setups, and the conditions were the hardest of the week. Thank God it wasn’t like this all week,” said Australia’s Adam Scott, who had a share of the lead early only to shoot a 41 on the back nine on his way to a 79. At 6 over, he finished seven shots behind Spaun in a tie for 12th.
Surviving the downpour wasn’t a test of wills; it was torture. Nearly every shot was accompanied by a groan from the gallery. Suddenly, no golfer was under par, and several seemed back in the hunt. It no longer mattered that most of the world’s top players were not in contention. The course, the conditions and the stakes created an early-evening knot near the top of the leader board, and the dark clouds only added to the drama.
“The back nine was just all about fighting,” MacIntyre said.
Spaun, as much as anyone in the field, knows about fighting. This time last season, he was struggling mightily. He missed 10 of 15 cuts from January to June, finished no higher than 26th in any tour event and failed to qualify for a single major. He said it “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.”
On Sunday, when Burns bogeyed the 12th hole, suddenly there was a five-way tie for the lead at 1 over, including Spaun, Scott, Carlos Ortiz and Tyrrell Hatton. And then down the stretch they came, not quite like champion thoroughbreds but more like battle-weary combatants. To a man, they had seen some stuff on this day.
After Spaun bogeyed No. 15, there were four tied up top, with MacIntyre suddenly in the mix after his birdie at No. 17. The Scotsman was the clubhouse leader at 1 over and had to watch on television to see whether the remaining golfers would continue to sputter.
Spaun never did. While others were grumbling and muttering, Spaun was climbing — a 40-foot birdie on No. 12 and a 22-foot birdie on No. 14. On the 17th hole — a 314-yard par-4 — he sent his tee shot 17 feet past the hole. His eagle putt rolled 3½ feet past the cup, but he had no problem draining the biggest birdie putt of his life to claim the lead. He made an even more impressive one just one hole later.
That last stretch was like a dream. A man who was 5 over before the weather delay was somehow 3 under after. A man who was on the fringe of the PGA Tour a year ago was now the U.S. Open champion.
“It’s definitely like a storybook, fairy-tale ending,” he said. “… Underdog fighting back, not giving up, never quitting. With the rain and everything and then the putt, I mean, you couldn’t write a better story. I’m just so fortunate to be on the receiving end of that.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
