Disappointed Wagner leaves Spaun's walk-off short
Johnson Wagner gave it a decent run, but he left disappointed after leaving J.J. Spaun's U.S. Open walk-off putt short on the 18th green -- before sharing his belief that Spaun is now a "lock" for the Ryder Cup.
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NBC Sports
an hour ago
- NBC Sports
Luckiest man alive? After conquering Oakmont, it's irrevocably J.J. Spaun
OAKMONT, Pa. – J.J. Spaun's closing pursuit of major glory began at 3 a.m. Sunday in, of all places, a CVS in downtown Pittsburgh. Spaun's almost 2-year-old daughter, Violet, had woken up with a stomach bug, and mere hours into Father's Day, dad duty called. 'Rough start to the morning,' Spaun admitted. 'But it kind of fit the mold of what was going on, the chaos.' Little did he know then just how chaotic the finish to this 125th U.S. Open would be. But whatever mean, ol' Oakmont decided to throw his way on Sunday afternoon just outside the Steel City, Spaun would be ready. His coach had made sure of it. Spaun had long possessed the talent to win majors, one of the world's best ball-strikers who could get hot with the putter every now and then; he just needed to first conquer his mind. Before Spaun's run and eventual loss to Rory McIlroy at The Players earlier this year, Spaun was frustrated by recent close calls, bemoaning bad breaks and wondering if he'd ever ascend into the sport's elite class. That prompted Spaun's instructor of nearly three years, Adam Schriber, to pull his pupil aside and deliver a healthy dose of reality. The 63-year-old Schriber, best known for coaching Anthony Kim, usually travels to events in a beat-up motorcoach that too often breaks down, but he's also 11 years older than his dad was when he died of leukemia. Spaun, a 34-year-old husband and father of two, overcame a diabetes misdiagnosis a few years back to win on the PGA Tour, and after briefly contemplating retirement last season following a down year, he had bounced back with arguably the best golf of his career. How could they possibly be the unlucky ones? In fact, Schriber posed to Spaun, 'What if you and I are actually the two luckiest motherf---ers in the world?' Spaun calls those motivational dialogues, Schriber's 'Lou Holtz talks,' coined after the former football coach with whom Schriber has traded wisdom. 'He once told me, either you give your guys a hug, or you put your foot up their ass; nothing in between,' Schriber recalled. Spaun needed his latest Holtz talk while walking to the first tee on Thursday morning. After a few days familiarizing himself with Oakmont's punishing landscape, Spaun's hopes had dwindled again. 'I feel like I have to play perfect golf out here,' Spaun told Schriber. 'No,' Schriber quickly interjected, 'what you need is a perfect attitude. You're going to hit good shots that are going to get f---ed because that's how this place is, and you can either react or respond. You know what you need to do.' And so, through rain, mud, wrist-breaking rough and a little early vomit, Spaun outlasted it all, stepping over his competitors' beaten remains before slaying Henry Fownes' beast with a 64-foot dagger on the final hole to finish as the only man under par and a major champion for the first time. 'I tried to just continue to dig deep,' Spaun said. 'I've been doing it my whole life.' WHAT A PUTT!!!! J.J. SPAUN WINS THE U.S. OPEN!!!! The thing about Oakmont is there's nowhere to hide – and it's not just because of the thousands of trees that have been removed from the sprawling property in recent decades. William C. Fownes Jr., the son of Oakmont founder and architect Henry C. Fownes, lived in the clubhouse during those summers in the early 1900s and was known to keep a watchful eye on the course. Fownes Jr. famously said, 'a shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost,' and when he'd witness what he believed to be a crack in the course's defense, he'd fix the problem to ensure that such shots were never found again. At one point, Oakmont had 330 bunkers. Gil Hanse and the USGA are responsible for this current iteration, with Hanse having recently completed an extensive renovation and the governing body instructing the club to grow 5-inch rough everywhere. With Oakmont's fairways and greens softened in the run-up by record precipitation, such growth was deemed necessary to stymie the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau. For the most part, it worked, as DeChambeau, the reigning champ, joined several top players – Ludvig Aberg, Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas among them – in hacking their ways to missed cuts, while Scheffler grinded out a T-7 finish but not without a couple club slams. Rory McIlroy smashed a tee marker into pieces on Friday. Corey Conners might've even broken his wrist. And that pesky Spaun? He opened with a 4-under 66, just the eighth bogey-free round in what has now been a decade's worth of U.S. Opens at Oakmont, and followed with solid rounds of 72-69 to enter Sunday's final round trailing leader Sam Burns by just a single shot. But Oakmont, of course, still had some tricks for the once aspiring professional skateboarder: A flighted sand wedge from 93 yards that clanged off the flagstick and back off the green at the par-4 second. A drive that ricocheted off a bunker rake and into a gnarly lie near Oakmont's famed church pews on the par-5 fourth. Through five holes, Spaun had carded five 5's and was 4 over – and a mis-club by Spaun's caddie, Mark Carens, contributed to another bogey at the par-3 sixth. On his way to a front-nine 40 – something no winner on the PGA Tour, let alone a major, had done in the final round since 1993 – Spaun would need a miracle. Carens knew just where to look. It was a year ago on Father's Day that Carens' father, Eddie, died after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's and dementia. At one point on the front side, Carens looked skyward and pleaded, 'What are you doing, Ed? Pay attention, man!' Then the heavens opened, and it poured harder than it had all week, stopping play for nearly two hours and providing Spaun, eight holes in and now four shots back of Burns, a chance to regroup. He grabbed some food, swapped his soaked Puma polo for a dry one and huddled with his coaches for some extra encouragement. The kick came from Schriber, and the hug from Josh Gregory, the short-game guru who had officially joined Spaun's stable this week, teaching Spaun, among other things, how to better judge lies in the rough. Their message was the same. 'They were just like, 'Dude, just chill. Just let it come to you, be calm. Stop trying so hard,'' Spaun recalled. Added Gregory: 'I looked at him as he went to the tee and I said, 'Bud, you're a dad, this is Father's Day, you've got two beautiful babies, and you've got a chance to win the U.S. Open. You would've signed for this on Monday.' Spaun then stepped up on the par-4 ninth and flushed one, a perfect, little cut up the left side. Eddie didn't let him down from there. 'On the back nine, he was definitely there,' Carens said of his pops, 'and we didn't get a bad lie in the rough coming in.' Jun 15, 2025; Oakmont, Pennsylvania, USA; JJ Spaun celebrates with his caddie Mark Carens after putting on the 18th green to win during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Spaun recounted a recent lunch with Max Homa back home in Arizona, during which Homa shared some advice from Tiger Woods, who told him the key to winning major championships was just sticking around. Spaun birdied the par-5 12th to join a five-way tie for the lead, then added another two holes later with a 22-foot make to claw back to even par and take a one-shot lead. That's when dreams began to wash away. Scheffler bogeyed his last hole to finish at 4 over. Carlos Ortiz doubled the par-4 15th to drop out of contention at 3 over, where he'd finish along with Cameron Young and Tyrrell Hatton, the latter of whom bogeyed each of his last two holes. Viktor Hovland seemed stuck in neutral all day and eventually placed third at 2 over. Burns' denial of relief from what seemed to be temporary water in the 15th fairway encapsulated his round, which included 78 strokes and as many doubles as birdies (two). He and Adam Scott combined to shoot 17 over in the final pairing, with Scott's 79 dropping him to T-12. 'It just wasn't easy out there,' Scott said. '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.' Spaun's last challenger was a man who, by his own admission, didn't need any pep talks. 'I'm just a guy who believes,' Robert MacIntyre said, safely in the house at 1 over. When he wrapped up his final-round 68, MacIntyre had about a 60% chance to win, per the live betting odds. But as MacIntyre spoke with the media, a nearby television displayed Spaun hitting two of the best drives of his life – the first one at the short, par-4 17th, where his tee ball raced past the hole before Spaun two-putted from 18 feet for birdie; and the second at the par-4 finishing hole, where he split the fairway to leave himself 190 yards in. The wet turf was no issue for Spaun, whose feet, Schriber says, are his 'superpower.' As Spaun landed his approach on the left side of the green, MacIntyre finally was able to retreat to the scoring area, away from the still spitting rain, to watch the drama unfold on television. Most guys in Spaun's position – a former walk-on from Los Angeles who became an All-American at San Diego State and has made over $20 million on the PGA Tour – would be perfectly content. But when Spaun was courting Gregory, he told him, 'I want to be elite.' Another tweak Gregory made to Spaun's game was in his putting setup, getting Spaun's hands higher to fix the arc of his stroke. With a teach from Hovland, Spaun knew he had to hit his birdie putt on the last firm and with no fear. Schriber once shared a story with Spaun about a 15-year-old Kim, who had just lost a prestigious junior event by hitting his closing drive behind a tree while trying to avoid the water. Kim then said to Schriber, with conviction, 'If I go down again, I'm going down trying to hit it where I want to hit it.' 'I didn't want to do anything dumb trying to protect a three-putt or something,' Spaun said. '… About 8 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.' J.J. Spaun carries his daughter away from the 18th hole while celebrating his US Open Championship win at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, PA on June 15, 2025. Michael Longo/For USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Spaun's bomb, which capped a final-round 72, wasn't just the longest putt made all week at Oakmont; it was nearly 30 feet longer than anything Spaun had converted all season. When the ball disappeared, so, too, did Spaun's putter, which was launched into the misty air, freeing up Spaun's right fist to do its thing. As chaos ensued, Spaun then hugged Carens, still holding his umbrella as the two twirled around in celebration before Carens stopped to point to the sky. 'Just to finish it off like that is just a dream,' Spaun said. 'You watch other people do it. … To have my own moment like that at this championship, I'll never forget this moment for the rest of my life.' Inside but only about 100 yards away, MacIntyre heard the roars early and then could only applaud as he watched what they were for. 'He won the golf tournament,' MacIntyre told afterward. 'I mean, he's dreamed of it. I've dreamed of it. Everyone's dreamed of that moment. For him to pour in the winning putt, nothing I can do. Fair play.' Once Hovland finished out, Spaun rushed to his family – Violet appeared to be feeling much better – and grabbed his 4-year-old daughter, Emerson, lifting her into his arms as he walked up the catwalk to sign his scorecard, passing over a throng of fans chanting, 'J.J.! J.J.! J.J.!' Streaming down Spaun's face were a mix of rain and tears, mostly tears. Almost always, when Spaun returns from playing golf, Emerson asks him, 'Were you the winner today?' But not on this day. Emerson looked into her dad's eyes and declared, 'You're the winner today.' How lucky is he?
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
This beautiful mess of a U.S. Open was for golf's real ones. Like J.J. Spaun
This was a moment was for the diehards. Those true golf fans who'll wake up early on a Thursday to catch a sleepy PGA Tour Live stream. The ones who'll read the articles and listen to the podcasts and tune in to watch final rounds each Sunday, no matter who happens to be in contention. If you know, you know. And if you aren't one of those golf fans, you probably didn't know much about the newest U.S. Open champion. Advertisement J.J. Spaun is — or was — what they call in sports a journeyman. He's 34 years old. Had logged 235 PGA Tour events before this game-changer, and of those, he'd won once. Spaun was playing the best golf of his career in 2025, though. Posted four top-10 finishes in 16 starts. Lost a playoff to Rory McIlroy at The Players. He'd even started to get some buzz about being a possible selection for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. For those paying close attention, this wasn't entirely out of nowhere. But nonetheless, as Spaun stood over a 64-foot putt on the 18th green in the rain, seeking a two-putt for the trophy, how could anyone know what to expect? Advertisement The torturous Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh had been spanking the world's best golfers for days, making carnage out of the 2025 U.S. Open. The rain-soaked final round was an especially tough watch. Nothing but bad breaks and bad shots. This wasn't about winning. It was pure survival. And so there was that last man standing. Spaun's moment was finally at hand and in his hands, and boy, did he act like it. Dude stepped up there and slapped that long putt toward the hole with the confidence of someone who knew it was going in . . . And then . . . it did. Golf! A highlight for the ages. Everyone had to smile. Other players had to smile. There simply couldn't have been a more beautifully rewarding conclusion after such an ugly tournament. Advertisement Spaun's final round was straight Hollywood. He bogeyed five of his first six holes, and it wasn't that he was playing terribly. He was dealt some incredibly bad luck, like an approach shot on No. 2 bouncing into the flag stick and ricocheting back off the front of the green. Then there was a timely weather delay, during which he collected himself and went on to birdie four of the final seven holes while everyone else who'd been in contention was busy falling apart. 'I never thought I would be here holding this trophy,' Spaun told NBC's Mike Tirico afterward. 'I've always had aspirations and dreams, but a few months ago, I never knew what my ceiling was. I never knew how good I could be. But I'm just proud that I've been resilient in my career and pushed through a lot of things.' Spaun's victory was a refreshing change of pace from a recent run of big stars claiming all of the biggest events in men's golf. The past six major titles had gone to four people: Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau, Schauffele and Scheffler — with Scheffler also winning gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Advertisement Estes: We loved Rory McIlroy's Masters because he outdueled his toughest foe: himself Felt kind of fitting in this instance that a no-name like Spaun who'd been grinding for years in the Tour's shadows was the one best equipped to overcome the non-stop adversity. This laughably difficult throwback golf course might be the toughest in America, if not the entire sport, and it had taken a toll on everyone. Only one golfer — Spaun at 1 under — didn't finish with a score over par. By the end, the sport's best and brightest had enough of Oakmont. McIlroy barely made the cut and told reporters on site that 'it's much easier being on the cut line when you don't really care if you're here for the weekend or not. Advertisement 'I was sort of thinking, 'Do I really want two more days here?' ' McIlroy finished 7 over, which was good enough to tie for 19th. World No. 1 Scheffler (4 over) kept hanging around and tied for seventh, but he could never get enough momentum for that late push. DeChambeau (10 over) didn't even make the cut. By the soggy end, the leaderboard offered a collection of names that casual sports fans looked at on a ticker on another channel and wondered, 'Who?' But this wasn't for those casual fans anyway. This was a U.S. Open for the real ones. Like J.J. Spaun. Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@ and hang out with him on Bluesky @ This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The 2025 U.S. Open was for golf's real ones. Like J.J. Spaun.
New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
J.J. Spaun shares adorable moments with daughters, wife after US Open win on Father's Day
On Father's Day, J. J. Spaun may have been the happiest dad on the planet. Not only did the pro golfer capture his first major title, winning the 125th U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, but he got to celebrate the milestone in adorable fashion with his two little daughters and his wife. Spaun won his first major championship on Sunday with a two-stroke victory, birdieing on the 17th hole to move ahead by one stroke and then sinking 64½-foot putt for birdie on 18 to secure the win. 3 J. J. Spaun of the United States celebrates with his wife and family after his winning putt on the 18th green during the final round of the 125th U.S. OPEN at Oakmont Country Club on June 15, 2025 in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Getty Images 3 JJ Spaun celebrates with his family and the championship trophy after winning the 125th U.S. Open golf tournament. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect After the putt went in and the crowd went crazy, Spaun bear hugged his caddy and the NBC cameras flashed to Spaun's wife, Melody, and the couple's two kids, Emerson Lili and Violet Windsor, as they celebrated from the stands. At one point, the couple's oldest daughter turned around with a smile on her face, reacting to the moment. As the celebration continued, Spaun was reunited with his family, picking up his oldest daughter, Emerson Lili, and gave her a kiss on the cheek before kissing his wife and their other daughter Violet, who has been dealing with a stomach bug that had Spaun at CVS at 3 a.m. on Sunday. Spaun was later seen holding his two girls as he was signing his scorecard after his U.S. Open win. Photos also captured Spaun showing the U.S. Open trophy to his two inquisitive daughters. 3 Getty Images 'It was a very touching moment to see my girls there,' Spaun said about seeing his daughters after his win. 'They've never — well, my oldest daughter, she was at the Valero when I won, and she was about the same age as my youngest daughter now. It was so cool to just have my whole family there on Father's Day. It's just incredible. I have no words to describe the moment and them being able to see me as the winner. 'My daughter always asks me, every time dad goes golfing, she's like, Were you the winner today? Sometimes I'm like, Yeah, I was. She's like, Where's my surprise? So today she's like, You're the winner today. Like she got to see it. She didn't have to ask me. So that was a really fun moment.'
