J.J. Spaun

"J.J." is short for John Jr.; he is of Filipino descent from his mother's side and Mexican ancestry on his father's side. Spaun was born in Los Angeles, California. He played college golf at San Diego State, where he was a two-time All-Mountain West Conference selection in 2010 and 2011, was the Conference Player of the Year in 2012. He was named a Third-team All-American in 2011 and a Second-team All-American in 2012, highlighted by three-straight individual wins in his senior year. Spaun majored in social science at SDSU and became a professional in 2012.
Spaun played his first three professional seasons on PGA Tour Canada, finishing 35th in 2013. After missing six of seven cuts in 2014, he went to PGA Tour Canada Q School, where he finished T-8th. Spaun had his first professional win at the 2015 Staal Foundation Open. The win moved Spaun inside the top three on the PGA Tour Canada Order of Merit, earning entry into the 2015 RBC Canadian Open. The Canadian Open was Spaun's PGA Tour debut, where he finished T-41st.
With two events remaining in the 2015 season, Spaun broke the record in PGA Tour Canada single-season earnings with $91,193. He made the cut in the eleven events he played, which included a tour-record four consecutive top-five finishes and six consecutive top-10s. Spaun finished as the PGA Tour Canada Order of Merit winner, which made him fully exempt on the Korn Ferry Tour for 2016.
2016 Korn Ferry Tour Summary: Tournaments entered - 23; Rounds Played - 77; in money - 15; top -10 Finishes - 7; Scoring Average - 69.49 (rank 15th); Season money $350,832 (rank 3rd), Finals money $12,600 (rank 57th), Priority rank (4th); Best finish: Winner News Sentinel Open. He finished 2nd, losing a playoff to Ollie Schniederjans at the Air Capital Classic. Also 2nd at the Utah Championship, two shots back of the winner, Nicholas Lindheim. He locked up his PGA Tour card for the 2016-17 season with a third-place finish on the 2016 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season money list.
2017 Notes: Played in 29 PGA Tour events, making 18 cuts with three top-ten finishes. Finished 97th in the FedExCup standings after a T-75th at the Dell Technologies Championship. Best finishes T-4th at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, T-6th at the RBC Heritage Classic, and T-9th at the Farmers Insurance Open.
2018 Notes: Played in 27 PGA Tour events, making 16 cuts with four top-ten finishes. Was T-10th at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. With rounds of 62-66 on the weekend, I finished 2nd at the RSM Classic, four shots back of the winner, Austin Cook. T-3rd at the AT&T Byron Nelson, four back of winner Aaron Wise. He was also T-3rd at the Barracuda Championship. He was 62nd in the FedExCup standings.
2019 Notes: Played in 26 PGA Tour events, making 19 cuts with two top-ten finishes. He was 99th on the final FedExCup points standings. T-10th at the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges. After an opening round of 69 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, he shot 65-65-66 to finish T-3rd, with three shots back from winner Matt Kuchar. After that, his best finish was T-13th at the Rocket Mortgage. In the FedExCup playoffs, he missed the cut at the Northern Trust.
2020 Notes: Played in 20 PGA Tour events, making ten cuts. He was 185th on the FedExCup points list. His best finish was T-30th at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
2021 Notes: Played in 26 PGA Tour events, making 12 cuts with one top-ten finish. He was 178th on the FedExCup points list. Their best finish was T-9th in his first start of the season at the Safeway Open. He played in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals and kept his PGA Tour card for 2022, thanks to a T-2nd at the Albertsons Boise Open.
2022 Notes: Played in 29 PGA Tour events, making 19 cuts with three top-ten finishes. He was 34th in the FedExCup rankings. He finished T-7th at the Bermuda Championship. He won the Valero Texas Open by two shots with rounds of 67-70-69-69, overcoming a double bogey on the first hole of the final round. It was his first PGA Tour victory in his 147th event at 31 years, 7 months, 14 days. He was T-8th at the Rocket Mortgage. In the FedExCup playoffs, he went into the series 26th in the rankings but dropped out of the top 30 when he finished T-42nd at the FedEx St. Jude and T-23rd at the BMW Championship.
2023 Notes: Played in 32 PGA Tour events, making 25 cuts with four top-ten finishes. He was 62nd in the FedExCup rankings. Best finish was T-5th at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and T-6th at the Zozo Championships. In the FedExCup playoffs, he was T-24th at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
2024 Notes: Played in 28 PGA Tour events, making 16 cuts with four top-ten finishes. He was 98th in the FedExCup rankings. Best was T-3rd at the Wyndham Championship, he shot 64 in the final round to finish three back of the winner, Aaron Rai.
2025 Notes: He started his year with a T-3rd finish at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where he was one shot back from the Nick Taylor/Nico Echavarria playoff. Shot final round 66 at the Cognizant Classic to finish T-2nd, two shots back of the winner Joe Highsmith. Was runner-up at the Players Championship, losing a three-hole aggregate, Monday playoff to Rory McIlroy. Two months after that, Spaun had his magical moment by uniquely winning the U.S. Open. Spaun had terrible luck on the opening nine in the final round. Like hitting the pin on his approach shot at 2, and watching it bound 50 yards away. Or on the next hole, hitting a rake and seeing the ball go into a terrible lie. Spaun made bogey on five of his first six holes and shot 40. So when the rain caused a 96-minute delay, Spaun got the break of the week, as he could reset for his last ten holes and make up the four shots he was behind Sam Burns at the start of the rain delay. Spaun returned to the clubhouse, changed into a dry pair of clothes, and he was able to relax, which helped him. The rain wiped away all of Spaun?s bad luck, which plagued him on the first eight holes. When he returned, it was like Tinkerbell spread some pixie dust over him. Spaun shot 40 on the front nine; it was the first time a U.S. Open winner had shot 40 or higher since Francis Ouimet shot 43-36 in the final round of his 1913 victory. In a way, what Spaun did was in the same realm as Tiger Woods?s first round of the 1997 Masters. In that event, he opened with a 40 and shot 30 on the back for a 70. Spaun shot 32 on the back nine, which included four birdies and one bogey. Talk about luck turning around; Spaun holed putts of 22, 40, and 64 feet, during his last seven holes. The luck part was his putts at 12 (40 feet) and 18 (64 feet). If you watch the replays, both putts dove into the hole. Both were going pretty fast, which would have left him with putts of at least five feet coming back. Talking about how long his putts were, he made 160 feet of putts on Sunday, 133 of them coming on the last seven holes. Spaun made 402 feet of putts for the week, the best in the field (Robert MacIntyre was next at 397 feet). But what won the U.S. Open for Spaun was a pair of great drives on the 17th and 18th holes. They were perfect; on 17, he hit the green, which led to a two-putt birdie, and the drive at 18 was down the center and made the hole a lot more stress-free. With the drives Spaun birdied the last two holes, thus becoming the fifth player in U.S. Open history to birdie each of the final two holes of the championship, joining Ben Hogan (1953, Oakmont), Jack Nicklaus (1980, Baltusrol), Tom Watson (1982, Pebble Beach) and Jon Rahm (2021, Torrey Pines). Spaun's lack of experience in major championships made him a surprising winner. Going into the week, he had played in just eight majors, and his best finish was T-23rd at the 2022 Masters. He had never played in an Open Championship and one U.S. Open, missing the cut in 2021. The last player to win the U.S. Open on his second start was Webb Simpson in 2012 at the Olympic Club.