OAKMONT, Pa. — The deluge turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence, the sheets of rain and corresponding delay a perfect opportunity for J.J. Spaun to turn chaos into calm.
While a crew of groundskeepers and volunteers were working on the saturated Oakmont Country Club with hand towels and squeegees and whatever else they could find to remove water from fairways and greens, the player who would go on to U.S. Open used the time to regroup.
Long before he raised the trophy, Spaun endured a horrendous start to the day. He began just a shot out of the lead but made bogeys on five of the first six holes and essentially became an afterthought while the likes of Sam Burns and Adam Scott and Viktor Hovland and Tyrrell Hatton vied for the title.
Spaun's bad start was epitomized by an approach shot to the second hole that bounced inches from the cup, hit the flagstick and caromed back off the green.
But he made a couple of pars as the rain arrived fast and furious, blanketing the course, puddling the fairways and sending spectators for cover before finally the horn sounded to stop play.
When Spaun returned to the course after the weather cleared, everything changed.
“That was a good break,” said Spaun’s caddie, Mark Carens.
“I felt like I had a chance, a really good chance to win the U.S. Open at the start of the day,” Spaun said. “It just unraveled very fast. But that break was actually the key for me to winning this tournament.”
So was an unlikely 64-foot, 5-inch birdie putt on the 18th green that sealed the win after he had taken a one-shot lead with a birdie at the 17th hole.
A crazy, tumultuous day that at one point saw five players tied for the lead at 1 over par ended with Spaun holing that long putt to beat Scotland’s Robert Macintyre by two strokes. It was the longest putt made by any player on any hole all week.
Spaun’s Sunday 72 gave him a final score of 279, 1 under par. He was the only player to finish in red numbers.
He is just the fifth U.S. Open winner to finish birdie-birdie. The last was Jon Rahm in 2021.
MacIntyre had come out of nowhere to get to the clubhouse first at 281, 1 over par. Other players continued to falter on the back nine.
“I might have a chance to win a major championship,” he said upon completion of his round, seeing all the carnage taking place behind him on the course.
And then a playoff appeared inevitable even after Spaun birdied the 17th to take a one-shot lead. His approach from 202 yards at the 18th came to rest more than 20 yards away while the rain again picked up. A three-putt for a bogey would have dropped him into a tie and set up a two-hole aggregate playoff to determine the winner on Monday morning.
Nobody expected it to go in.
“That was unbelievable,” said Hovland, who played with Spaun and finished third, three shots back, after a 73. “After his start, it just looked like he was out of it immediately. Everyone came back to the pack. I wasn't expecting that, really. I thought I had to shoot maybe 3 under par today to have a good chance, but obviously the conditions got really, really tough, and this golf course is just a beast.
“To watch him hole the putt on 12 (for a birdie to get to 1 over) down the hill there was unreal. And then he makes another one on 14 (to get to even par) that was straight down the hill. And then the one on 18 ... it's just absolutely filthy there.”
Before Sunday Spaun had just a single victory on the PGA Tour, the 2022 Valero Texas Open.
He struggled after that win and things went so bad that last summer he worried about his future. “I thought I was going to lose my job,” he said about having to fight for status this year.
Spaun showed signs of a better golf life several times this year, including a playoff loss to Rory McIlroy at the Players Championship. He also tied for sixth recently at the Truist Championship and was 25th in the Official World Ranking heading into the event.
He opened the tournament with a bogey-free 66—the only round of the championship without a bogey—and ended up the only play to not make a double bogey.
But these opportunities don’t always come around. Spaun met his family—wife Meldoy and two young daughters—on Saturday night at their Pittsburgh area hotel and the mood was a bit tense.
“He was very quiet,” Melody Spaun said. “He was trying to put it out of his mind.
“Even after the bad start today, I was thinking that this isn’t the end. Maybe he finishes top 10. Maybe the British Open would be the one, right? I’m always the optimist with golf and he’s kind of the pessimist and we’re the opposite in life so it was well.
“But I was just happy for whatever we got. This is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. And just knowing what’s coming is amazing and exciting and scary at the same time. But in a good way.”
Spaun will no longer need to worry about job security—his win comes with a five-year PGA Tour exemption, plus five years of spots in the other major championships and a 10-year exemption into the U.S. Open.
“I just felt like you keep putting yourself in these positions, like eventually you're going to tick one off,” Spaun said. “I don't put myself in this position often, or at all, for a major, that's for sure. This is only my second U.S. Open. 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 told a story about a chat he had with fellow Tour player Max Homa at their home club in Arizona and how he told a Tiger Woods story that related to the U.S. Open. “As long as you are still there, you don’t have to do anything crazy, especially at a U.S. Open. You’ve just got to stay there.
“I kind of was thinking about that out there this afternoon, where I was four back, maybe going back out after the delay, and then I made some good pars, nothing crazy. Got a really good birdie. Then, next thing you know, I'm like tied for the lead, I think, and within four holes of the restart.
“That just kind of goes back to that, like you just try to like stay there. You don't have to do anything crazy, especially at a U.S. Open. All those things came true.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Lone Survivor: J.J. Spaun Overcomes Miserable Front Nine and Rain Delay to Prevail at Oakmont.