J.J. Spaun has never experienced anything like the last 72 hours of his life.
“I’m not like fully in the clouds still,” he said Wednesday at the Travelers Championship, “but we’re getting a little below the ceiling, the cloud ceiling. Yeah, it’s been a whirlwind.”
The 34-year-old, of course, won the U.S. Open Sunday at Oakmont Country Club with a 64-foot birdie putt on his last hole.
He stayed at the course past midnight following a series of post-victory obligations that included autographs, getting his name engraved on the trophy and celebrating in a private room at the venue. At roughly 1 a.m. Monday morning, Spaun finally left and went back to his hotel.
“Then it was a quick three hours of sleep,” Spaun said. “I got back at 1:30, and I just kind of sat in bed, trying to maybe go through my phone. Took a quick shower, started going through my phone to respond to some people and just tried to see what was going on to help me like soak it in and realize that it actually happened because it's just been such a blur since then.”
Several hours later, he was off to New York City. He had dinner with his family Monday night and was up at 6 a.m. Tuesday for his media tour.
“Didn’t finish—it was literally nonstop,” Spaun said. “Didn’t finish until 3:30, 4, hopped in a car, got driven up here [to Connecticut]. That was about 3½ hours. Didn’t walk through the front door of the hotel until 8 p.m.
“Finally got some good sleep, though. I slept about eight hours, which was nice. The last two nights, I got the same amount as I did last night combined.”
Amid the mayhem, he received messages from Mookie Betts of his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers, George Lopez, Scott Van Pelt and fellow major champions Curtis Strange and Hale Irwin.
“People that I have never even talked to,” Spaun said.
Spaun still hasn’t responded to everyone.
Now, his focus shifts to the Travelers Championship and the rest of the season.
“I definitely need to keep the hunger there,” the world No. 8 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.”
This is all new to Spaun. A year ago, he was in danger of losing his card. Entering the U.S. Open, he had one win (2022 Valero Texas Open) in 235 career starts. Even getting to that point wasn’t easy. He was a walk-on at San Diego State and is now the first PGA Tour Americas alum to win a major, climbing through the mini-tour ranks to achieve his dream of playing on golf’s grandest stage.
“There’s a Confucius quote,” Spaun said. “He says—God, I’m going to butcher this. Maybe you guys can correct me. Something like, ‘the glory isn’t for how high you get or something, but it’s more about the rise when you get pushed down’ or something like that. The glory isn’t for how high you get in your peaks, it's more of like when you bounce back, that’s where it’s at. That’s kind of, I feel like, my career.”
With his U.S. Open triumph, along with an additional four top 10s this season, more accolades are on the horizon. Perhaps, most notably, a berth on the U.S. Ryder Cup team (Spaun is third on the U.S. points list).
“I’ve spoken with J.J. I am so thrilled for him to have won that tournament,” U.S. captain Keegan Bradley said Wednesday at TPC River Highlands. “He’s played so great this year. I think going to a course like Bethpage Black, the people are really going to be behind a guy like J.J. Spaun. 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.”
It’s easy to look ahead to that, but it’s also important to revel in his triumph.
“I need to enjoy this,” Spaun said, “like Keegan told me that yesterday. He said, ‘you need to enjoy this. Do your best to just enjoy it.’ It’s easy to kind of let it out the window and get right into the next week and forget about it for a while.”
And traveling to three different states in two days while being sleep deprived is part of that.
“I’m super grateful to have won the championship and to be given this experience,” Spaun said. “It’s something I’ll never forget, obviously, for the rest of my life. I guess I’m a part of history now.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Inside J.J. Spaun’s Whirlwind, Sleep-Deprived Post-U.S. Open.