U.S. Open 2025: From walk-on to major champion, J.J. Spaun's college coach has seen him at his lowest and highest through the years

For years, since he coached J.J. Spaun at San Diego State in the early 2010s, Ryan Donovan has watched the golfer float between cockiness and crushing self-doubt. Spaun, the improbable winner of the U.S. Open at Oakmont on Sunday, came from humble beginnings, growing up in working-class San Dimas in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley. Without the funds to travel to premium junior events, Spaun played his way around Southern California, a pudgy kid who didn’t look like or carry himself as a golfer with a bright future.

MORE: How improbable was J.J; Spauin's walk-off birdie putt?

“He was a kid who always seemed kind of bitter,” Donovan recalled on the phone Sunday night after watching Spaun’s victory at home in San Diego. His phone was blowing up with messages and he'd just got off a very quick FaceTime call with former players who got in quick congratulations with Spaun as he walked with the trophy.

But the youngster had some of the best hands in a golf swing Donovan had seen, and after getting a look at Spaun in the U.S. Junior, the coach offered him a walk-on spot at SDSU. Spaun had no other options, so he took it.

“I like those gritty kids,” Donovan said. “I thought that he could be a hell of a player.”

The first semester was rough. Spaun’s roommate and teammate in a rental house was a huge partier, and when Spaun’s parents saw what was going on, they were horrified and nearly yanked him from school. “We had to talk them off the cliff,” Donovan said. The party animal got kicked off the team, Spaun stayed, and over four years Donovan watched Spaun’s remarkable transition from slovenly underdog to college All-American.

“He was a better college golfer than Xander [Schauffele],” Donovan said, drawing the natural comparison to another SDSU alum who won two major championships in 2024.

Spaun notched five career wins for the Aztecs (Schauffele had two), and not even in that total is a match-play victory in the team quarterfinals of the 2012 NCAA Division I Championships at Riviera. Spaun dominated the match and won 4 and 3. The guy he beat: Cal’s Max Homa.

“He had become such a gifted player,” Donovan said.

Unlike Schauffele, who visits regularly with San Diego State’s current players, Spaun hasn’t kept very close ties with the Aztecs program, but he and Donovan do speak on occasion, and the coach recalls a phone call a couple of years ago in which Spaun sounded like he was done with professional golf.

“He was talking about being an instructor,” Donovan said. “He was down on himself, saying he wasn’t good enough. He was going through some stuff with his diabetes and trying to figure that out. But he just kind of hung in there and stuck it out.”

Donovan believes having two daughters changed Spaun’s perspective, but he also wondered if Spaun could truly overcome his own negative feelings about his play.

“I thought it might hold him back from being a champion like this, a major champion,” Donovan said. “I thought he could be a journeyman tour player who makes a million bucks a year and keeps his tour card.”

Spaun, of course, was that player, with one career victory in 235 starts heading into Oakmont.

Donovan has marveled all season at Spaun’s rise, including three top-3s over the first few months and a playoff loss to Rory McIlroy in the Players Championship. Then came Thursday’s impressive opening round of 66 in the U.S. Open, and Donovan’s reaction was, “Well, let’s see how he can handle this.” When Spaun responded with 72-67 over the next two days, Donovan was confident Spaun could hang in on Sunday.

The prospects looked dark when Spaun shot five over for the first six holes. But after a weather delay, and in a frenetic race to the finish line, Spaun charged with four birdies in the last seven holes and gave himself a one-shot lead when he drove the green at the par-4 17th and birdied.

“At that point, I knew he was in good shape because he could hit that little butter cut into the 18th fairway and two-putt,” Donovan said. “Then he has that long [64-foot] putt, and it creeps into your head that he could three-putt and go to a playoff. And then he makes what will probably go down as one of the greatest moments in U.S. Open history.”

To watch Spaun receive the championship trophy was not only satisfying but pleasingly familiar to Donovan, who has now seen two of his former players win three of the last six majors. And lost in the celebration on Sunday was that a current San Diego State player, Justin Hastings, was the low amateur for the week.

Donovan, who just completed his 22nd season as head coach at SDSU, admitted he was a bit miffed that the feat wasn’t noted on the NBC broadcast. He said he believes it could be the first such double for any college in one championship.

As for majors, the Aztecs are now one Masters win away from a school Grand Slam. (SDSU’s Gene Littler came the closest at Augusta, losing in a playoff to another San Diegan, Billy Casper, in 1970.)

Schauffele, the World No. 3 who won last year’s PGA Championship and Open Championship, should still be considered the most likely to seize a green jacket. But at this point, nothing seems out of the realm of possibility for the kid from San Dimas, J.J. Spaun.