J.J. Spaun, Sixty Four Feet, and the Men in the Sky

OAKMONT, Pa.—A little after 8 p.m. on the Sunday evening, J.J. Spaun stood in the gloaming on Oakmont’s 18th green, eyeing a putt that could change his life. The lights had flicked on in the old clubhouse behind him. The slanting rain was illuminated by the electronic scoreboard near the green. All those numbers on the board behind Spaun told a tale of despair and regret. Future Hall of Famers, putting savants, young studs, glamorous veterans…they had all been exposed by Oakmont’s brutality. Spaun himself looked overwhelmed at the outset of his round, bogeying five of the first six holes to vanish from contention. But an early evening rain delay allowed him to regroup; he went so far as to change his clothes in an attempt at renewal. The wet rough, saturated fairways and squishy greens pushed Oakmont to the edge of unplayable, fraying the nerves of every would-be contender except for Spaun. He may be as small, round and cute as a garden gnome but there is a tough sonofagun within. He produced a series of clutch putts and one epic swing (on the drivable par-4 17th) to seize control of the tournament. Now he had what every golfer dreams about until he has to face it: two putts to win the United States Open. In Spaun’s case, it was 64 feet of sloping, undulating terror.

As Spaun’s putt made the long traverse across the green, his caddie Mark Carens thought about his dad Eddie, who died last year on Father’s Day. “We always talk about ‘Eddie in the sky,’” Spaun said later. “He’ll kick my ball out of the rough, he’ll get me a good lie. We needed Eddie today.”

Across San Diego, dozens of Spaun’s friends and fellow travelers had their thumbs poised over their phone keyboard. Spaun’s close friend and roommate at San Diego State, Andy Wood, was found dead in his bed on the morning of the final round of this year’s Players Championship; he had a heart defect. Spaun went out that day and played the best golf of his life, pushing Rory McIlory to a playoff. A year earlier Spaun had been worried about keeping his TOUR card but the gutsy play against McIlroy convinced Spaun that he finally belonged. On Saturday of the U.S. Open, hundreds of people gathered at Goat Hill Park in Oceanside, Cal. to remember Andy Wood. He was a legend at the Goat, renowned for his grind and ability to hole clutch putts, which were followed by a pet exhortation: “Boom, baby!” As Spaun fought his way into the lead on the closing holes at Oakmont, the golfing community in San Diego and Oceanside couldn’t help but feel Wood was guiding his old friend with an unseen hand.

Spaun’s ball dipsy-doodled across the green and took a hard right turn toward the hole. With so much emotion riding on the putt, there was only one logical outcome: Spaun’s ball kissed the flagstick and disappeared. Boom, baby! Spaun jumped into the arms of his caddie, who was shouting in his ear, “Eddie in the sky!” Both were wiping away tears as they exited the green, having instantly become part of U.S. Open lore.

“Yeah, that was unbelievable,” the new U.S. Open champ said after his second career victory. “I couldn't even believe what I witnessed when that went in… Yeah, it's definitely like a storybook, fairytale ending, kind of underdog fighting back, not giving up, never quitting. With the rain and everything and then the putt, I mean, you couldn't write a better story.”

Unlike pretty much all the guys he beat, Spaun, 34, has never been a blue-chip prospect. (Though his mother Dollie, who is of Mexican and Filipino descent, is an avid golfer who teed it up when she was eight months pregnant with J.J.) Spaun learned the game on a 9-hole muni. He didn’t play AJGA tournaments growing up and he had to walk-on at San Diego State. Upon turning pro in 2012 he slowly, methodically built a career, though some of his struggles had nothing to do with golf: Spaun was misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2018. He felt sluggish for three years until his type 1 diabetes was correctly identified and his treatments altered.

Related: 18 Parting Thoughts from the 125th U.S. Open at Oakmont

Spaun finally broke through with a win at the 2022 Texas Open, in his 147th PGA Tour start. But it’s not easy being a finesse player surrounded by titanium-denting bashers. Spaun struggled so much in 2024 that he began contemplating retirement. “I kind of was thinking about, ‘Hey, I played eight years out here, I've got a great family [including two young daughters], I've won, so it's not the end of the world if this is how it ends for me.’” That feeling of acceptance unlocked something within Spaun. “That's kind of when my attitude changed,” he says.

His game began to crest this year, with near- misses in Hawaii, Palm Beach and at the Players. On Monday of U.S. Open week he began working with short-game specialist Josh Gregory, who Spaun knew from his college days when Gregory was coaching at Augusta State. (“He snubbed me for the Palmer Cup,” Spaun says with a smirk.) Gregory shortened his new pupil’s chipping motion and instituted a couple of putting drills that clicked with Spaun. On the first hole of the first round he chipped in for birdie—Eddie in the sky! Spaun took the lead with a 66 and never stopped believing in himself, beginning the final round only one stroke behind leader Sam Burns. The deficit was four when the rains came on Sunday. At the range before the restart, Spaun got an earful from Gregory and his longtime swing coach Adam Schriber. “They were like, Dude, just chill,” says Spaun. “They said, Just let it come to you, be calm. Stop trying so hard. That's what I was doing. I felt like I had a really good chance to win the U.S. Open at the start of the day. It just unravelled very fast.”

Spaun made a curling 40-footer on 12 to get back in the fight. “To watch him hole the putt on 12 down the hill there was unreal,” said playing partner Viktor Hovland. Burns, Hovland, Scottie Scheffler, Adam Scott, Tyrrell Hatton…while the big names sputtered Spaun kept attacking. On 14, he hit a beautiful approach shot—for the season he’s 7th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained approach—and then holed a 22-foot birdie putt. Suddenly the lead was his. Spaun unleashed the drive of his life on the 312-yard 17th hole, his ball nestling 17 feet from the hole for eagle. He missed the putt but secured the birdie, just as a hard-charging Bob MacIntyre took the clubhouse lead at +1, setting up the drama on 18. Spaun’s unforgettable final putt—”absolutely filthy,” said Hovland—made him just the fifth U.S. Open winner to finish birdie-birdie and you’ve heard of the other guys: Ben Hogan (1953), Jack Nicklaus (‘80), Tom Watson (‘82), Jon Rahm (2021). And, oh yeah, Spaun was the only player to finish under par on vaunted Oakmont.

He was charming in his champion’s press conference and the Father’s Day photos with his family and glittering new trophy couldn’t have been any cuter. It’s a beautiful life, but as the champ was leaving Oakmont he couldn’t help but think about his fallen friend, Andy Wood. “I’m gonna have a beer for him tonight,” Spaun said. We know what he will be drinking it from.