COVERAGE: Spaun Survives Manic U.S. Open Finish For First Major

OAKMONT, Pa. — At the climax of a final round that was as cloudy and swirling as the skies above Oakmont Country Club, the forecast for J.J. Spaun was suddenly crystal clear.

Make a par on 18, win the U.S. Open.

After a perfect drive down the middle of a soggy fairway and a perfectly passable mid-iron to the left side of the green, the 34-year-old Southern Californian had to get down in two from 64 feet. Not so easy, with a career-defining victory in the balance and, oh yeah, one of Oakmont’s slope-iest surfaces to navigate.

And it was raining. Again.

It sure wasn’t easy, but it ended up being simple. Spaun drained the longest putt of the championship to win his first major and finish as the only golfer under par in another brutal Oakmont Open.

“I was just in shock, disbelief that it went in and it was over,” said Spaun, with U.S. Open trophy placed in front of him. “Yeah, here we are.”

If the finish was simple, the route to get there was anything but.

Spaun, who introduced himself to most golf fans this spring when he fell to Rory McIlroy in a Monday playoff at the Players Championship, shot a bogey-free 66 on Thursday to take the early lead and was just one shot behind 54-hole leader Sam Burns starting the day.

Heady stuff for a guy who contemplated quitting pro golf last year, when was ranked 162nd in the world per Data Golf.  This was just his ninth major and second U.S. Open; he didn’t qualify for any majors last year. He had one previous top-level tour win to his name, in 2022.

Putting Spaun’s rapid ascension aside, any chances of chasing down Burns looked dead in the puddle water after Spaun bogeyed five of his first six holes to fall four shots back when play was halted for roughly 90 minutes due to pouring rain. He eventually posted a front-nine 40, a number no PGA Tour winner has carded during a final round since 2003.

“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 unravelled very fast, but that (weather) break was actually the key for me to winning this tournament.”

Spaun said he changed clothes during the delay, and he validated that refreshment when he striped his tee shot on the challenging par-4 ninth. He didn’t make a birdie until the par-5 12th, when he sunk a delicate 30-footer that nearly stopped halfway to the hole.

When leaders Burns and Adam Scott made a mess of the 11th hole one group behind, Spaun was right back in the ballgame. A textbook birdie at the 14th put him ahead, but 15 minutes later he was back in a four-way tie at the top after he missed the fairway left and clumsily laid up into the right rough. A bogey ensued as his par effort slipped by.

But Spaun kept pushing. A routine par at the lengthy par-3 16th kept him knotted with England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Scotland’s surging Bob MacIntyre. (Fitting challengers since the conditions more resembled a British Open than the U.S. version.)

Then came the shot of Spaun’s life. At the oft-pivotal short par-4 17th, he powered a drive up the hill, through the neck of fairway in front of the green and within 20 feet of the hole. The eagle putt didn’t drop, but the tap-in birdie put him back in front by himself — a position he’d been in and around since chipping in on his very first hole of the week.

“Yeah, there was no faking, there was no hiding since Thursday,” Spaun admitted. “I think that’s what I’ve been able to overcome. I’m not trying to shy away from the moment. Like I just tell myself, ‘If I can do this when there’s no pressure or no lead, like why can’t I do it when there is?’

“It’s just trying to get over that line of handling the nerves and handling pressure. I really showed myself a lot today on that back nine.”

Although several men had the opportunity to seize this championship, Hatton might have had the most regret at the end of the night. He arrived at the 17th tied for the lead, but drove the ball into the rough surrounding the infamous ‘Big Mouth’ greenside bunker.

Facing a gnarly downhill lie, Hatton could only whack the ball across the bunker to the thick rough on the upslope. He managed a chip to the fringe from there, at which point you could see Hatton’s signature emotion bubbling over — and not in a good way.

“That’s ridiculous,” an incredulous Hatton told reporters just before Spaun clinched it. “Stopping on the downslope in the rough? I feel I missed it in the right spot and got punished, which ultimately I don’t think ends up being fair.”

The 33-year-old made bogey there and bogeyed 18 after a poor drive, finishing four shots back in his first true chance to knock off a major.

“I think I’ve proved to myself that I can handle my nerves because I’ve won big tournaments,” said Hatton, who’s won on the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour and LIV. “Yeah, a major would have been nice to add to the list, but it didn’t work out on this occasion, but I know that I feel like I handled myself pretty well. Yeah, just I’m sad standing here with how it ended up finishing for me.”

Burns had a two-stroke lead on multiple occasions during the epic afternoon, but he ejected from contention amid a controversial ruling on the difficult par-4 15th. He thought he would get relief from casual water in the soaked fairway, however, two USGA officials declared there wasn’t visible water near the ball when he took his stance.

“Took practice swings and it’s just water splashing every single time,” Burns recalled. “Called a rules official over, they disagreed. I looked at it again. I thought maybe I should get a second opinion. That rules official also disagreed. At the end of the day, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the rules official. That’s kind of that.”

After all that, Burns hooked his approach well left and couldn’t get out of the rough with his first chip. A double bogey put him two back and he ended up posting 8-over 78 in his first Sunday chance to close a major.

“It’s a tough golf course, and I didn’t have my best stuff, and clearly it showed,” Burns said. “I went out there and gave it the best I had. At the end of the day, I can hold my head high.”

Saturday’s showers led to lower scores than the first couple of days, but with the wind freshening early Sunday afternoon, Oakmont started to regain some of its bite. Then, ironically, the moisture that kept the leaders in red figures ended up making conditions even more difficult.

The leaders immediately got kicked in the teeth on No. 1, with three of the four making bogey on that particular downhill slalom. Only Burns emerged unscathed, but an errant tee shot on 2 led to his first three-putt of the week when he couldn’t get his approach in the same ZIP code as the flag.

The 44-year-old Scott, hunting his second career major and first in 12 years, nearly drained a long eagle on the par-5 fourth, pumping his fist preemptively before it scooted just past the cup. A tap-in birdie for him, followed by a sloppy Burns bogey on the par-4 fifth, and the two were tied for the lead not even a third of the way through the round.

With storm clouds gathering and rain sprinkling down, Scott dropped back with a three-putt of his own on the scoreable par-3 sixth. The final pairing got through the seventh with pars before the downpour began.

“Look, 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. It was just so sloppy the rest of the way. I didn’t adapt to the conditions well enough.”

Spaun, meanwhile, was searching for the proper feel in his swing. Even when he did hit a good shot, like at the short par-4 second, he ran into horrible luck, as his wedge approach rattled off the flagstick and ricocheted all the way off the green.

“All I heard is like a really loud like, ‘Oh!’ from the crowd,” Spaun said. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’ During the delay I went and watched (the replay) and it was just really unlucky. It was pretty much a two-shot swing.”

Regardless of how it went down, all those squares on his card marked a massive departure from his earlier form, as he was bogey-free on Thursday and reeled off 12 straight pars during Saturday’s high-stress round.

When play resumed after a roughly 90-minute delay, Burns nearly drove the green on the 301-yard par-3 eighth, eventually getting up-and-down while Scott bogeyed. Burns donated a stroke back on the precipitous ninth, pitching out after driving the ball left into a drainage ditch.

With more storm clouds gathering, it appeared Burns might be tightening the screws on 10, when he converted a terrific approach into his first birdie of the day and a two-shot lead.

But then came the 11th. Burns missed his drive in the left rough and ended up in a divot. From there he left his approach in the lip of a cross bunker, powered the recovery over the green, and chipped well past the hole for a game-changing double bogey.

Scott didn’t do much better, but he dramatically saved bogey after blading his approach into untamable fescue behind the green. Suddenly, he was just one back again, and six total players were within two shots of Burns’ lead.

“It was borderline unplayable,” Scott lamented. “The water was so close to the surface. Like the shot I hit on 11, it’s bizarre. I just don’t know. It was like an aquaplane on the ground.”

Another hole later and the drama got even better. Burns short-sided himself on the par-5 12th and couldn’t get up and down, lipping out a par putt from eight feet. Since Spaun rolled in a 40-foot birdie on the same hole minutes earlier, there was a five-way tie for the lead at 1 over.

By that time, MacIntyre was making his move. He birdied 14 to pull within one, and vaulted into a tie at the top when he nailed a drive in front of the green on 17 and got up and down. A par at the last and he was in the clubhouse at 1 over, sending major-winners Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm (both finished at 3 over) to Pittsburgh International Airport.

“Then the back nine was just all about fighting,” MacIntyre said. “The whole week, I’ve said level par in my head. Almost got there, but not quite.”

Norwegian star Viktor Hovland was lurking all weekend, but he could never get his driver working well enough to make a decisive move. He also misfired on a handful of par saves Sunday, putting him two back of Spaun when they walked up the 18th together.

“Just didn’t hit it very good, and I missed way too many short putts,” said Hovland, who finished solo third at 2 over. “It was a grind, but happy to battle back at least, and it was a very nice week. … I keep progressing in the right direction, and to have a chance to win a major championship without my best stuff and not feeling very comfortable, it’s super cool.”

In the end, Hovland putted for birdie on 18 from nearly the same spot as Spaun’s tournament-winner, just a couple of feet back. Hovland missed his, but evidently gave Spaun a great read.

“The one on 18, that’s absolutely filthy there,” Hovland said.

Filthy could also describe the shoes and legs of the thousands of spectators who toughed out the conditions to see a manic finish to the 10th U.S. Open at Oakmont.

This genius mutation of links and parkland styles has held up marvelously over more than a century. Who knows where Spaun’s career goes from here, but Oakmont certainly makes its champions earn it.

“It just, it felt like, as bad as things were going, I just still tried to just commit to every shot,” Spaun said. “I tried to just continue to dig deep. I’ve been doing it my whole life.

“Fortunately, I dug very deep on the back nine, and things went my way, and here we are with the trophy.”