It was the rain that may have made all the difference.
J.J. Spaun, reeling after bogeying five of the first six holes in the final round righted the ship after a 96-minute rain delay and won the 2025 U.S. Open with a back nine charge for the ages. Spaun, who began the day one stroke behind third-round leader Sam Burns, carded a final-round 72, to finish at 1-under 279 to capture his first major championship. Left-handed Scotsman Robert MacIntyre closed with a brilliant 68 to finish second, two strokes behind at 1-over-par 281. Norway’s wunderkind, Viktor Hovland, winner of the 2023 FedEx Cup, finished third at 2 over after closing with a 73.
Spaun birdied the final two holes to break out of a tie with the hard-charging MacIntyre, first driving the green at the short par-4 17th for a two-putt birdie, then rolling in a 65-foot birdie putt across the 18th green, sending the crowd into peals of jubilation heard all the way From Pittsburgh to Cincinnati.
“I wasn't really groomed to be a professional golfer. I didn't get put through academies. I didn't play the AJGA. I played local stuff. I did qualify for, actually, my first big USGA event, which was the U.S. Junior. ... That's kind of when I realized my potential,” Spaun remarked gratefully, cradling the trophy in one hand, and his youngest daughter in the other.
Join Golf News Net for $10 per year, and go ad-free!“I just kept going, like one foot in front of the other. Junior golf, college golf, turning pro, and now here I am with the US Open trophy.”
But it took one of the grittiest gut-checks in recent US Open history and a deluge from the Weather Gods for Spaun to rally from a nightmare start. In the first two holes, he chopped from the left rough to the right rough twice, fell victim to two of Oakmont’s severe false-front greens, and couldn’t hole a putt. He plummeted from 3 under and a tie for the lead to 2 over and gasping for air. But his coach, Josh Gregory, came to the rescue with advice that rings true for every golfer – from U.S. Open competitor to Sunday Nassau participant.
“He told me ‘Dude, just chill. If you were given four shots back going into the back nine on Monday, you would take that.’ Then he said, ‘Just let it come to you, be calm. Stop trying so hard.’ That's what I was doing,” Spaun said. “I felt like I had a chance, a really good chance to win the U.S. Open at the start of the day; it just unravelled very fast. But that break was actually the key for me to winning this tournament. I just felt like you keep putting yourself in these positions, like eventually you're going to tick one off.”
When play resumed, the tournament appeared to have devolved into a battle between Sam Burns and Adam Scott, playing together in the final group, behind the pairing of Spaun and Hovland. But Burns lost control of the tournament (and his lead) with a disastrous double bogey-bogey sequence at 11 and 12, and Scott could neither capitalize on the mistakes of others, nor gain any momentum with any charge.
“Once the fairways were soaked, it was very hard controlling the golf ball. It was borderline unplayable...but we played. Everyone had to deal with it,” Scott lamented post-round. “I felt better before the rain delay, that's for sure. I went back out feeling okay, but then I left every kind of tee shot to the right coming in, and that was impossible to recover from almost. But that's what can happen in these things. If you get a little off, you're just severely punished. I didn’t adapt to those conditions well enough.It was just so sloppy the rest of the way.”
Spaun, however, saved his best golf for the soggy finish. Birdies at the par-5 12th and the short par-4 14th vaulted him back into contention as the back nine wound towards the finish, setting the stage for his late heroics.
“I was having lunch with Max Homa at home. We live in the same area. We belong at the same club. He was telling a Tiger story where he was like, As long as you just like are still there, you don't have to do anything crazy, especially at a U.S. Open. He's like, Tiger said this would happen, and the wind will switch, but you've got to just stay there. Even if you're four back, you've just got to stay there. You don't have to do anything crazy,” Spaun said.
“I kind of was thinking about that out there this afternoon, where I was four back, maybe going back out after the delay, and then I made some good pars, nothing crazy. Got a really good birdie. Then, next thing you know, I'm like tied for the lead, I think, and within four holes of the restart.”
Spaun's playing partner, Hovland, lamented about the missed opportunities that Spaun seized and he couldn't.
“After his start, it just looked like he was out of it immediately. Everyone came back to the pack. I wasn't expecting that really. I thought I had to shoot maybe 3-under par today to have a good chance, but obviously the conditions got really, really tough, and this golf course is just a beast,” added Viktor Hovland, whose four bogeys on the front nine condemned him to never being a factor.
"[I] just didn't have it today. Just didn't hit it very good, and I missed way too many short putts, just didn't make anything. It was a grind, but happy to battle back at least, and it was a very nice week. I keep progressing in the right direction, and to have a chance to win a major championship without my best stuff and not feeling very comfortable, it's super cool. So I'm going to take a lot of positives with me this week.”
The 12-year journeyman pro from Los Angeles now owns five professional wins, including the 2022 Valero Texas Open. Spaun qualified for this Open via his spot inside the top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking, aided by his second place finish at the Players Championship behind Rory McIlroy, who bested Spaun in a three-hole aggregate playoff. Spaun also tied for second at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches. Now, he's eighth in the world. The greatest day of his professional life ended as a major champion, but he had no idea when it started that it would turn around like this.
“Today I was running to CVS in downtown because my daughter had a stomach bug and was vomiting all night long…my wife was up at 3:00 a.m., and she's like, Violet is vomiting all over. She can't keep anything down. It was kind of a rough start to the morning. I'm not blaming that on my start, but it kind of fit the mold of what was going on, the chaos,” Spaun laughed. “Fortunately, I dug very deep on the back nine, and things went my way, and here we are with the trophy.”
