CROMWELL, Connecticut – Oh, how life has so dramatically changed so quickly for grinder J.J. Spaun.
Only a year ago, Spaun feared losing his PGA Tour card and wondered if his pro golf career was still worth fighting for after he fell to 119th in the Official World Golf Ranking. But he drew sudden inspiration from the 2004 film “Wimbledon” about an aging tennis player who had slipped from 11th to 119th in the world but dug in and came out winning the sport’s biggest prize.
“It’s pretty cliché, but never give up,” Spaun said. “There’s two ways you can take when your back’s up against the wall. You can succumb to it and just say, ‘OK, this is my way out,’ or ‘I’m going to fight back.’ I’ve been kind of through these situations in my life before, and I’ve always kind of fought back and come out the other side instead of kind of succumbing to it and letting it get to me and ending any sort of dream I had.”
Spaun nearly won the Sony Open in January and then was one turn of the ball from winning The Players Championship two months later instead of losing a playoff to Rory McIlroy, No. 2 on the planet. Despite the loss, Spaun vaulted to No. 25 in the rankings and then came the soggy U.S. Open last week at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club. Spaun challenged for three rounds and then bogeyed five of the first six holes on Sunday to fall four back and into a position that would knock down players with no guts or guile. Not Spaun. He righted himself while most other challengers headed south, making birdies on three of the last seven holes, the final two in epic and memorable proportions.
First, Spaun drove the 314-yard, par-4 17th hole and two-putted from 18 feet for birdie and a one-shot lead over Robert MacIntyre. But the treacherous par-4 18th lay ahead. Not to Spaun, who piped his drive more than 300 yards and then hit his approach 64 feet left of the cup. Two putts and Spaun would have an improbable first major championship title. He needed only one stroke, a curling transcontinental conversion that sent Spaun and caddie Mark Carens joyously careening around the green engulfed by a roar not equaled since hometown legend Arnold Palmer walked Oakmont’s famous grounds.
Then instead of heading to the Travelers Championship, which begins Thursday at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Spaun and his family spent all day Tuesday on a major media blitz.
“It’s been pretty hectic but also very fun,” Spaun said Wednesday. “It’s been nice to be given the opportunity to express my feelings, my emotions. A lot of people want to hear from me. I was really grateful to have the opportunity to tell everyone about it. So I enjoyed it. It was a fun time.
“I actually wanted to go to New York City at some point between Pittsburgh and Cromwell. I was telling my wife it would be fun to take a little one-night trip to the city. She wasn’t for it, but it ended up becoming mandatory after Sunday.”
Spaun has had special sentiments for the tournament since 2018 when he won the Travelers Charity Challenge and $10,000 for hitting a shot closest to the pin on the island green near the 16th tee. He formed a strong personal relationship with Andy Bessette, longtime Travelers executive and the heart of Connecticut’s biggest sporting event, after he had had “a crazy diagnosis” of diabetes type 2 that he wasn’t expecting.
“I wasn’t feeling great, so I knew something was up,” Spaun recalled. “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, but I remember winning that and getting to donate $10,000 to the charity of my choice, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). When Travelers got word of where I wanted that donation to go, Andy Bessette kind of broke down apparently and was kind of touched very deeply because he’s a very integral part of that charity and donates quite a lot of money, too.
“So that initiated our connection. 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, it was even more so helpful to have JDRF and Andy on my side to kind of help me navigate another new territory. I’m happy to be back, and hopefully I can win the challenge again and donate some more money to JDRF.”
Besides the $4.3 million first prize for winning the U.S. Open as a 120-1 longshot who hadn’t had a Top-20 finish in a major championship, Spaun vaulted to third in the U.S. Ryder Cup points standings, virtually clinching a spot on the 12-man team that will face Europe on Sept. 26-28 at Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y. So where’s his head entering the last of the PGA Tour’s Signature Events that have a $20 million purse, $3.6 million first cut, 700 FedExCup points, no cut and the top 72 players in the world eligible to play?
“I’m not like fully in the clouds still, but we’re getting a little below the ceiling, the cloud ceiling,” Spaun said. “It’s been a whirlwind. Everything that the aftermath of this whole championship has been so crazy but so much fun, and all these doors opening, it’s stuff that you don’t expect ever really to happen in your career. The (hometown Los Angeles) Dodgers reaching out and Ryder Cup potential, the Today show.
“It’s just insane. I’m super grateful to have won the championship and to be given this experience. It’s something I’ll never forget obviously for the rest of my life. I guess I’m a part of history now.”
So Spaun, 34, seems bewildered from the fame that has suddenly come in his 12th year as a pro, a year after he fended off the demons goading him to give it up. This is not a movie, it’s real. Early congratulations have come from dozens of players worldwide, former U.S. Open champions Curtis Strange and Hale Irwin, comedian George Lopez, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, who was Spaun’s Pro-Am partner at Pebble Beach.
Spaun has moved to eighth in the world rankings and hopes his new joy ride will continue in the first two rounds of the Travelers Championship on Thursday (1:45 p.m.) and Friday (10:36 a.m.) when he’ll be paired with defending champion and No. 1 ranked Scottie Scheffler, the two-time Masters titlist whose three wins in his last five starts include the PGA Championship and Memorial. Spaun will be playing the Travelers for the fifth time since 2020. He has missed the cut in three of his four previous appearances but has never arrived in Cromwell like he does this time.
The Travelers field has the Top 11 players in the world and 45 of 50, including the last four major champions: Spaun, Scheffler, 2022 Travelers winner and No. 3 Xander Schauffele (Open Championship) and McIlroy, who became the sixth winner of the career Grand Slam when he captured the Masters in April. McIlroy will play 36 holes with 2023 Travelers champion and U.S. Ryder Cup Team captain Keegan Bradley of Vermont, and Schauffele is paired No. 4 Collin Morikawa.
Play begins each day at 8 a.m., and other notable pairings include Jason Day-Max Homa (9:10), Adam Scott-Cameron Young (10:05), MacIntyre-Viktor Hovland (10:15), Ludvig Aberg-Sam Burns (10:25), Harris English-Lucas Glover (10:55), Rickie Fowler-Michael Kim (11:30), Patrick Cantlay-Sungjae Im (Noon), Sepp Straka-Aaron Rai (12:55), Shane Lowry-Denny McCarthy (1:05), J.T. Poston-Matt Fitzpatrick (1:15), Justin Thomas-Hideki Matsuyama (1:25) and Jordan Spieth-Luke Clanton (1:55).
The Travelers is signed on to continue as a Signature Event through 2030.
TIGER MAKES BRIEF APPEARANCE
Tiger Woods, who has never played in Connecticut’s biggest sporting event and likely never will, made a brief appearance at River Highlands on Tuesday in his role as player director on the PGA Tour policy board. He was in town to support the naming of Darien’s Brian Rolappo as the PGA Tour’s newly named CEO as a replacement for Trinity College grad Jay Monahan, who will end his run as commissioner at the end of 2026. The 49-year-old legend arrived for a PGA Tour board meeting on Monday night, attended an early morning press conference on Tuesday posed for photos with assembled officials. But he was not available for interviews and departed as golfers were beginning their practice rounds.
“He came out to the course and was part of the players’ meeting and for all their announcements,” said Andy Bessette, Travelers executive VP and chief administrative officer. “It’s always good to see him.”
Woods has won 82 PGA Tour events, tied with 1965 Insurance City Open champion and fellow Hall of Famer Sam Snead for the most in history, and 15 majors, second to Jack Nicklaus (18). But Woods’ last win, and his last major title came in 2019. Age and injuries, including those sustained in a car accident in 2021, have curtailed his career. He had surgery on a ruptured Achilles in March and has not played since the PNC Championship in December 2024.
Though he declined an invitation to captain the U.S. Ryder Cup team, Woods has been active and involved in PGA Tour issues, as talks aimed at an agreement with Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which has siphoned off several top players, are ongoing and the look of pro golf is evolving. Rolapp, a veteran NFL executive tapped for a newly created PGA post, singled Woods out for his work on that front.
“I think I would classify Tiger’s influence as significant,” Rolapp said. “He works hard. He’s smart. He’s dedicated. I would say that about Tiger and all these player representatives and other board members, they work really hard and they care a lot. I think the amount of time and work they’re putting into this and rethinking this has been very impressive to me, and I think I would point out Tiger specifically.
“He certainly cares about the game. I won’t speak for him. He can speak for himself. But from what I’ve seen, the amount of time and dedication and work he’s putting into this, he’s driving, doing this for, not his legacy necessarily, but he’s doing it for the benefit of the next generation of players, and that comes through significantly.”
Travelers Championship officials have been trying to get Woods to join the star-studded fields that have played in Cromwell for decades, especially since it is a Signature Event. But, partly because the Travelers comes the week after the U.S. Open and because Woods has been cutting back on schedules, it has never happened.
“He’s always been open with me, he’s never played the week after a major,” said Andy Bessette, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Travelers. “That’s just the way it was. And now, his injuries prevent him from playing most tournaments. It was just good to have him here.”
Woods has visited the club occasionally through the years. On Tuesday, he toured the clubhouse and the surrounding areas and then headed home to Florida without hitting a ball.
