Players Championship
Players 2025: A massage chair that isn't actually a massage chair may have saved J.J. Spaun on Sunday
Logan Bowles
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — For a high-level professional athlete, especially in 2025 and especially in pro golf, few things throw them off their games like a break in their routine. Well over half the field at the Players Championship on Sunday faced a four-hour break in their routines in the form of a lengthy rain delay. The type that could all but sink the chances of a player like J.J. Spaun, who did not need any extra time to think about trying to win the tournament of his life.
But, if you use that time wisely, it can actually help you. Save you, even. It may have saved Spaun's final round at TPC Sawgrass, which, as he admitted himself, began with plenty of doubts.
"Starting the round I was a little tentative, a little scared and stuff," said Spaun, who had a four-shot edge over the big-bad wolf in contention, Rory McIlroy, who cut that lead to one with a birdie-eagle start to his round.
When the horn blew due to thunderstorms, Spaun's lead wasn't just gone, he was now one back of McIlroy, a fact he had to grapple with over the next four hours while players took shelter.
How Spaun wound up spending that time could prove to be the difference between being just another guy and being a Players champion. He hung out with fellow California native Charley Hoffman, who had a self-therapy contraption handy that Spaun simply had to try out for himself.
"I hung out with Chuck, Charley Hoffman, in the performance center thing. It's actually funny, there's this chair called the Shiftwave—I think that's what it's called," Spaun said. "It's this vibrating—it's not a massage chair, but it's got these magnets all over it that vibrate to kind of like a track—like specific tracks. And you put this headset on and an eye mask, and he's like, 'Dude, you need to try this.' It was like a 10-minute session. And I sat down and it was telling me, like, to breathe in positivity. And it was like, When you arise from this you're going to feel like you're ready to take on the day, and maybe that's what I needed."
Good vibes come to those who hang around Hoffman, confirmed.
Having said that, Spaun did bogey the first hole coming out of the delay, and that hole happened to be the par-5 11th, which McIlroy had birdied just before play halted. When it resumed, McIlroy birdied No. 12 to lead by three. Tournament, seemingly, over.
Not quite. Spaun was still more than ready to take on the rest of the day. A McIlroy bogey at 14 re-opened the door, and Spaun rolled right through with an improbable birdie three on 14, which played as the hardest hole this week. McIlroy then missed a short birdie putt at No. 15 and another birdie putt at 16. Spaun parred the 15th and birdied 16 to pull even with the four-time major champion again at 12 under. Pars for the both of them at the 72nd are sending this Players Championship to a Monday playoff of the three-hole aggregate variety.
"There was a lot of uncertainty," Spaun said of the delay. "But that doesn't help the anxiety, but it definitely felt like a mini kind of night before, you know, the final round, leading the round, or leading going into the final round.
"But yeah, the Shiftwave chair helped."
Should Spaun go on to slay the giant that is McIlroy on Monday, it's safe to say some sort of partnership between Shiftwave and Spaun is on the horizon. Before leaving the interview area on Sunday evening, Spaun was already hinting at that.
"Sponsor me!"