J.J. Spaun wins rainy US Open for first Major title
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J.J. Spaun holds the USGA trophy after winning 2025 US Open golf tournament on June 15.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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OAKMONT – During a less-than-fruitful 2024 season, J.J. Spaun wondered if he should quit if he failed to keep his PGA Tour card.
He could have called it quits on June 15 when he bogeyed five of his first six holes in the US Open final round, dropping behind several more accomplished golfers on the leaderboard before a 96-minute weather delay.
In both cases, Spaun rejected the idea of quitting.
Then, amid a Pittsburgh summer storm, came the lightning strike.
Spaun sank an improbable 64-foot birdie putt at the 18th hole to cap his stunning first Major victory, emerging from the pack in the wild, waterlogged concluding day at Oakmont Country Club.
Viktor Hovland said Spaun’s putt at No. 18 was “just absolutely filthy”. Spaun had to agree.
“You watch other people do it,” Spaun said. “You see the Tiger (Woods) chip, you see Nick Taylor’s putt (at the 2023 Canadian Open), you see crazy moments.
“To have my own moment like that at this championship, I’ll never forget this moment for the rest of my life.”
He finished the round birdie-birdie to card a two-over 72 and finish the week on one-under 279, two shots better than Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre (68).
Spaun said: “I just felt like you keep putting yourself in these positions, like eventually you’re going to tick one off...
“But all the close calls that I’ve had on the PGA Tour this year has just been really good experience to just never, never give up.”
Spaun, 34, had just one previous victory on the PGA Tour in 2022 and never finished inside the top 20 at a Major. His closest brush with glory came when he lost a play-off to Rory McIlroy at The Players Championship in March.
The journeyman lost his PGA Tour status in 2021, when he dropped outside the top 500 of the world rankings and earned his way back only via the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
Perhaps that persistence is not that unusual when you consider that his mother, who is of Filipino descent, was such an avid golfer that she sought her doctor’s permission to keep playing while carrying him until she was eight months pregnant.
Spaun shot 66 in the opening round to take the early lead, hung around in the second and third rounds and then won a war of attrition in horrid weather conditions. At one point down the final stretch, five players were tied for the lead at one over, and that group did not even include eventual runner-up MacIntyre.
At the 314-yard, par-four 17th hole, Spaun pumped a drive uphill that settled on the well-guarded green.
He two-putted for birdie to take the outright lead.
Needing par at No. 18 to beat MacIntyre, Spaun landed his second shot on the far side of the green and got a read from playing partner Hovland of Norway, who putted first. Spaun drained the birdie and let the waterworks flow as the heavens poured on him.
“We kind of got a good line, a good read on the speed (from Hovland)”, Spaun said. “I was more focused on how hard he was hitting it.
“I kind of knew the line already, but it looked like he gave it a pretty good whack because it started raining there for the last 10, 15 minutes...
“About eight feet out, I kind of went up to the high side to see if it had a chance of going in, and it was like going right in.
“I was just in shock, disbelief that it went in and it was over.”
Hovland (73) finished third at 282. Cameron Young (70), England’s Tyrrell Hatton (72) and Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz (73) tied for fourth at 283.
Sam Burns led Spaun and Australia’s Adam Scott by one stroke after 54 holes, but Burns and Scott came undone in the rain.
Burns shot 40 on the back nine of a 78 to drop to 284, tied-seventh with Scottie Scheffler (70) and Spain’s Jon Rahm (67); Scott (79) posted 286 for joint-12th. REUTERS
