U.S. Open winner J.J. Spaun's health issues posed greater threat than Oakmont
U.S. Open winner J.J. Spaun's health issues posed greater threat than Oakmont
As soon as J.J. Spaun won the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont on Sunday, Andy Bessette fired off an email to Spaun to congratulate him.
'For a man with Type 1 diabetes to win the U.S. Open with four days of pressure – pressure is the enemy of Type I diabetes – I said with your burden there is nothing more amazing than you winning the U.S. Open,' said Bessette, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers and a hammer thrower on the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team. 'To me, it's one of the greatest accomplishments in sports given the burden he lives with.'
In the fall of 2018, Spaun was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
'I wasn't feeling great, so I knew something was up,' he said Wednesday during his press conference ahead of the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut.
The 34-year-old started taking medicine for Type 2 but still felt lethargic, kept losing weight and, most concerning, losing distance. By mid-2021 his ranking dipped to No. 584 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Before COVID canceled the 2020 Players Championship, Bessette was chatting with pro Harold Varner III, who expressed his concern that his pal Spaun was struggling with diabetes. Bessette's son, Chris, had been diagnosed with Type I diabetes at age 18, and Bessette was familiar with the disease – the beta cells in the pancreas stop working and produce zero insulin. Spaun goes into insulin shock if he doesn't control his insulin levels. Varner called Spaun via FaceTime to connect him with Bessette, who listened to his list of symptoms.
'I said, 'Are you sure you have Type 2?' You should get yourself checked by a good endocrinologist to make sure,' Bessette recalled advising.
He made some calls on Spaun's behalf to the CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (since renamed Breakthrough T1D), which funds research for the development of new therapies and treatments for type 1 diabetes. Spaun eventually discovered he was misdiagnosed.
'I just was kind of going through the whole learning experience of what diabetes is and how to treat it and how to approach this disease,' Spaun said.
He has been approved by the Tour to wear a Libre blood-sugar monitor and check his levels while competing. If his blood sugar is low, he can faint. If it gets too high, his vision starts to blur.
Later that year at the Travelers Championship, Spaun wedged to 19 inches in a closest-to-the-pin contest at the red floating umbrella in the middle of a lake dubbed hole No. 15 ½ at TPC River Highlands. As the winner, Spaun could donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. He chose JDRF. Bessette was touched by Spaun's gesture and personally matched the donation.
'So that initiated our connection,' Spaun said. 'He's kind of been there for me the whole way, where if it was doctors I needed to get in touch with or CEOs of JDRF, it's been nice to have that connection and his network to kind of help me along this journey because I had just been diagnosed with it, but diagnosed incorrectly. Even when I got my diagnosis corrected, I guess, it was even more so helpful to have JDRF and Andy on my side to kind of help me navigate another new territory.'
Bessette was moved again Sunday when Spaun achieved a career-defining moment at Oakmont – Type I Diabetes be damned.
'It changed his life,' Bessette said of being diagnosed correctly. 'It's a brutal disease.'
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