OAKMONT, PA (93.7 The Fan) – You might have wanted to see Bryson DeChambeau battle with Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy down the stretch of the US Open Sunday at Oakmont Country Club, but what you ended up seeing was a player who embodied what Pittsburgh is about.
We pride ourselves in overcoming adversity. We are the city that built the foundation of America through hard work. While New York, Chicago and Los Angeles got the spotlights, we kept working. There is a lot of that in US Open champion JJ Spaun.
Growing up in Los Angeles he always loved golf, but didn’t have the resources to travel the country to play in youth events. Spaun did everything he could with the opportunities he was given and became very good. His hard work turned into an opportunity at San Diego State and by the time he was done, earned second-team All-America honors. But it wasn’t straight to the PGA Tour, for three years he played on PGA Tour Canada. Spaun would play on the Korn Ferry Tour (which is the Triple A tour of golf) before winning an event there and getting his PGA Tour card.
In his first full season he played in 29 events, missing nine cuts and had to withdraw twice. By the 2018-19 season he was struggling from February to April missed three cuts, withdrew from THE PLAYERS Championship and was 63rd at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Spaun was dealing with weight loss and fatigue. In 2020-21 he missed cuts in 14 of the 26 events and was eventually diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
It was the next battle in his life. Spaun’s career was a rollercoaster of results as he attempted to get his body right. In 2022, he got his first win, the Valero Texas Open, but in the stretch after would miss the cut, or withdraw, in six of the next seven tournaments. By Spring of 2024, Spaun wondered if he would have a job as a touring professional golfer, yet alone put himself in a position to win a US Open.
Spaun missed the cut in five of the first six events in 2024. By mid-June, Spaun missed the cut in 10 of the 15 events with his best finish tied for 26th at a lower-level tournament.
Spaun, like our city, picked himself up after three weeks off to finish the rest of the 2024 season with four top 10 results. He embraced ‘if I’m going down, I’m going down swinging’.
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He found some confidence and rolled into the early 2025 season with a second and a third-place result and even tied for the lead at the prestigious PLAYERS, losing to Rory McIlroy in a playoff.
Spaun wasn’t near the top of the list of favorites for the US Open, but chipped in for birdie on his first hole at Oakmont Country Club and finished with an opening round 66 to take the lead. He was a shot behind entering the final round.
After a bogey on number one to open play Sunday, Spaun hit a perfect tee shot on number two. His second shot was so close to the hole it actually hit the pin and bounced back roughly 60 yards back in the fairway. A potential tap-in birdie turned into a bogey. Later his ball would hit a rake keeping it in the rough. Through all of that he didn’t blink, at least externally. He’s developed a mentality that he believes he gets a lot of bad breaks. Spaun has embraced adversity, and kept plugging.
No one thought after making the turn five over on the front nine and at two over par for the tournament that he would be a factor going down the stretch. While fans kept following Scottie Scheffler as he missed birdie after birdie and wondering if 44-year-old Adam Scott could win a second major, Spaun kept playing.
As most of the others started falling back on the saturated golf course, Spaun quietly kept coming. After five consecutive pars, he managed to get one out of the rough, hitting an approach 22 feet from the hole on 14 and made the birdie. He gave it right back on 15 after a drive into a bunker.
Meanwhile, Robert MacIntyre is birding 17 and parred 18 to get into the clubhouse at one over. That’s where Spaun sat with two holes to play. Tied for the lead, the 34-year-old pulled out his driver on the 314 yard, uphill, par 4 17th. With it all on the line the one-time winner on the PGA Tour hit a perfect shot over the tall rough, flew a couple of bunkers, it bounced on the green, leaving him 21 feet feet for eagle. Spaun would two-putt for birdie and take the lead.
Surely this 34-year-old in his second-ever US Open, wasn’t going to hold this lead. Most who teed it up on the 509-yard 18th missed the fairway into the either unforgiving rough or bunkers where you can’t reach the green. The last two times he played the finishing hole, Spaun drove it in the right rough and bogeyed. This time he took control, striping another driver down the middle, 309 yards with little roll. He would hit his next shot conservatively 65 feet from the hole.
What followed was a life-changing putt. After watching third-place finisher Viktor Hovland blow a putt by the hole on nearly the same line, Spaun finished it. As his birdie attempt was approaching the hole, he took a few steps and watched it go in. The fist pumps came next and at one point his caddy jumped in his arms. The mostly stoic veteran started crying and his wife and daughters came to congratulate him.
It was amazing theater as Pittsburgh fans started chanting ‘JJ, JJ’. The 5’8” golfer without the flashy name or the flash clothes, who arrived at Oakmont Country Club Sunday in a tee shirt and shorts, defied the odds to beat the toughest course in the world.
Just like a Yinzer would do it.