OAKMONT, Pa. — J.J. Spaun’s prior experience in the U.S. Open had been short and anything but sweet, rounds of 77-75 at Torrey Pines in 2021 resulting in a missed cut while playing on a course he was familiar with, having played college golf at San Diego State. So upon arriving at big, bad Oakmont Country Club to give it a second try in the national championship, expectations were modest. He had been fighting a few things with his full swing since Memorial, had his first lesson with a new short-game coach on Monday and knew Oakmont by reputation, having never played the course before this week.
Despite all that, the 34-year-old PGA Tour journeyman played an exceptional round on Thursday, posting a bogey-free four-under 66 to take a one-shot lead midway through the round.
Just how good was his play on Day 1? For starters, it matches the lowest opening round ever shot in a U.S. Open at Oakmont. Plus, only one player in the last two U.S. Opens played here finished a round bogey-free (Dustin Johnson, during the first round in 2016) and there had been just seven bogey-free rounds ever recorded in the nine previous Oakmont U.S. Opens.
Spaun’s opening round began on the 10th hole and started with a thunderbolt—a chip-in birdie from 20 feet. He then made three more birdies on his next seven holes, turning in four-under 31 to become the first golfer in U.S. Open history at Oakmont to shoot a 31 in his opening nine holes.
So how did he do it? Well, for one thing, he tried his hardest not to let Oakmont intimidate him before he could see how difficult it was in person.
“All you've been hearing is how hard this place is, and it's hard to not hear the noise and see what's on social media and Twitter and all this stuff. You're just kind of only hearing about how hard this course is,” Spaun said. “I was actually pretty nervous. But I actually tried to harness that, the nerves, the anxiety, because it kind of heightens my focus, makes me swing better, I guess. I don't know, I kind of get more in the zone, whereas if I don't have any worry or if I'm not in it mentally, it's kind of just a lazy round or whatever out there.
“I like feeling uncomfortable. I ended up feeling pretty comfortable towards the end of the day, but there's a long way to go still.”
Comfortable in particular with his short game. After chipping in on his first hole, Spaun’s putter picked up the momentum. He rolled in three birdie putts from inside 12 feet. And when he missed greens, he scrambled like a madman, making four par saving putts seven and eight feet, one from 11½ feet and one from 16 feet. Not surprisingly he was leading the field in strokes gained/putting after he was done with his round.
Suffice it to say, he probably was happy about picking up his new putting coach on Monday. Spaun knew Josh Gregory since back when he played college golf at San Diego State in the early 2010s and Gregory coached at Augusta State (“He snubbed me for the Palmer Cup,” Spaun noted.). He’d talked to Spaun about working with him since playing at Colonial last month.
“I just didn’t really have a structure on how to approach my short game. He kind of sought me out at Colonial,” Spaun said. “I said yeah, let’s get together at the U.S. Open and do some chipping. He’s like you don’t have to hire me. I’ll just show you what my deal is. I’ll show you how I teach guys. If you like it, great. If not, I don’t care because you’re my boy.”
The pair worked together each of the past three days, Gregory shortening Spaun’s chipping swing to try to avoid decelerating on shots and giving him some putting drills that proved more than helpful in terms of figuring out pace on Oakmont’s fast greens.
Ross Kinnaird
In his ninth season on tour, this is arguably Spaun’s best since turning pro in 2012. He hasn’t had a win—his lone victory coming at the Valero Texas Open in 2022—but he had a T-3 at the Sony Open and a T-2 at the Cognizant Classic before falling to Rory McIlroy in a playoff extended to Monday at the Players Championship. Spaun started this week sixth in the FedEx Cup points list (essentially locking up a spot in the Tour Championship) and is 13th in the U.S. Ryder Cup points standings, giving himself an outside chance at making this year’s team playing at Bethpage Black in September.
And to think that less than a year ago Spaun was seriously contemplating quitting the game when it looked like he was about to lose his tour card.
“I think it was kind of in the middle of the season last year when I played really terrible to start the year,” Spaun said at the Players Championship. “I had some health stuff, like, fighting off viruses and flus that put me physically unwell. I didn't want to blame that on my poor play. But halfway through the season it was looking like I was going to be done, like not going to finish 125, and I kind of was thinking about, ‘Hey, I played eight years out here, I've got a great family, I've accomplished, I've won. So it's not the end of the world if this is how it ends for me.’ With that, that's kind of when my attitude changed.”
Spaun expanded on that Thursday, recalling watching the early 2000s movie “Wimbledon” in December while on a flight to England.
“It was this … not washed up but like older tennis player and he’s thinking of quitting and he wants to retire at Wimbledon and he ends up winning Wimbledon,” Spaun said. “He meets a girl and goes through all this stuff. And it kind of resonated with me you know you can’t give up yet. I was watching it and was like ‘maybe that can be me.’”
Needless to say, Spaun’s confidence has grown since that time, his solid play in the first half of the 2025 season—particularly coming so close to winning at TPC Sawgrass against McIlroy—changing his attitude about his game.
“I used to be kind of scared … I guess you could say having the lead or being the one that everyone is chasing," he said. "I always was comfortable kind of being a chaser than the one being chased. I had a really rough Sunday at Memphis like three years ago, and that kind of gave me some scar tissue. And then kind of didn't really contend too much like that in between then until this year, leading into Sony, or going into Sony on Sunday, one-shot lead at a course I never really historically played well.
“So I was pretty nervous. But I was like, you need to embrace this, stop being scared. You don't want to go back thinking, what if I didn't embrace this, who knows what I would have done, versus yes, I want to be that guy. That's what all the great players want. So if you want to be a great player, that's the route you've got to go.
There’s plenty of golf still to play at Oakmont, but contending is something Spaun hopes to continue to do the next three days.
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