J.J. Spaun the last man standing in Oakmont battle
The winner after one of the US Open’s most dramatic final days – image Jeff Haynes USGA
As one sits down to try and describe today’s final round of the US Open at Oakmont, it is hard to know just where to start.
Beginning the day with Sam Burns one ahead of Adam Scott and J.J. Spaun, within an hour or so it appeared as if it might develop into a battle between Burns and Scott with Spaun bogeying five out of his first six holes.
But of course, this was the US Open and this was Oakmont, and six or so hours later it would be a case of the last man standing being Spaun himself, who staged a remarkable and gutsy rebound from early adversity to hole an 70 footer at the last to win by two over Robert McIntyre.
The two most likely winners of the event early in the day, Burns and Scott would eventually shoot rounds of 78 and 79 respectively and finish 7th and 12th but, while they were disadvantaged by what was a 90 minute weather delay beginning at 4.00 pm, many others would become contenders over the last two hours or so of play.
Spaun was the victim of some early bad breaks, none more so than, after a bogey at the first, his pitch to the short par 4 second hit the flag and spun back some 50 yards.
But, to his credit, he managed to put those aside, although when play resumed, Spaun was four shots off Burns’ lead and three behind Scott and given the breaks he had suffered over the opening few holes, his chances of even contending seemed forlorn.
But then came a series of pars to settle things, and when he holed a 30-footer for birdie at the 12th he was heading in the right direction.
Spaun needed the help from others and that would come in the form of a demise from both Burns and Scott and when he birdied the 14th from 25 feet after a fine shot from the rough he had the lead over a faltering Burns and Scott, with Tyrell Hatton and Carlos Ortiz entering the fray to be also one back.
The coup de grace for Spaun was yet to come, however. His magnificent tee shot to the driveable 17th finished 20 feet behind the hole and although he would not make the eagle, the birdie took him ahead of McIntyre, who had finished earlier with a round of 68 and held second place alone.
All Spaun then needed to do was to par the last, a task easier said than done, but not only would he be up to the task he did even better by holing the most unlikely of birdie putts to win by two.
When asked how he managed to recover from such a horror start, Spaun would say, “It just, it felt like, as bad as things were going, I just still tried to just commit to every shot. I tried to just continue to dig deep. I’ve been doing it my whole life.
“I think that’s been the biggest difference this year has been being able to do that. Fortunately, I dug very deep on the back nine, and things went my way, and here we are with the trophy.”
Spaun was asked about advice he had received during the weather break from one of his coaches and what had been said.
“Oh, it was on the range. Yeah, it was kind of the theme for how the day was going. They were just like, Dude, just chill. If you’re for — if you were given four shots back going into the back nine on Monday, like you would take that. They just said, Just let it come to you, be calm. Stop trying so hard.
“That’s what I was doing. 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.”
The monster putt at the last, which would see him winning by two, was assisted by his playing partner Viktor Hovland having the almost exact putt immediately ahead of him.
“Viktor helped me a lot,” added the winner. “It was a foot left of my line. It’s pretty ironic, my first PGA TOUR win, almost the same thing happened at the Valero, but Scott Stallings was in a bunker on the last hole, we were in the same group — the back left bunker — and I hit my third shot on the back fringe, and I had to literally mark my ball for him to hit the bunker shot. He, same thing, splashed it out, right on my line, and just like fed it down to the hole. It was probably like a 40-footer.
“When I was walking up to 18, I was thinking about that moment. I was like, Oh, my God, like this is meant to be here, because this is the same thing that happened to me for my first win.
“Yeah, Viktor, we kind of got a good line, a good read on the speed. I was more focused on how hard he was hitting it. I kind of knew the line already, but it looked like he gave it a pretty good whack because it started raining there for the last 10, 15 minutes. I just tried to pick my line and put a good stroke on it. I knew it was going to be a little slow.
“About eight feet out, I kind of went up to the high side to see if it had a chance of going in, and it was like going right in. I was just in shock, disbelief that it went in and it was over. Yeah, here we are.”
One of the finest performances of the day would come from one of the vanquished, Burns. Not given a seemingly logical relief from casual water on the 15th when tied for the lead, Burns asked for a second opinion, and again it was refused. He would then pull hook his second and take double bogey, but rather than cast dispersions on the decision makers, he took it on the chin despite the gravity of the outcome.
“Yeah, that fairway slopes left to right,” said Burns, referring to where is tee shot finished on 15. That’s kind of the low part of the fairway there. When I walked into it, clearly, you could see water coming up. Took practice swings, and it’s just water splashing every single time. Called a rules official over, they disagreed. I looked at it again. I thought maybe I should get a second opinion. That rules official also disagreed.
“At the end of the day, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the rules official. That’s kind of that. From that point, Travis and I said, Look let’s focus on the shot, try to execute. I did the best I could. I was 100 percent locked in on what I was trying to do. Ultimately, it felt like the water just kind of got in the way, and I went left. It is what it is.”
Scott would really be impacted when play resumed after the break, dropping seven shots in the final eleven holes.
“I don’t know. It was kind of — it was tough,” said Scott. “It was bad conditions. No one really had a good score. I missed the fairway. I hadn’t done that all week really. Then I did, and I paid the price and lost a lot of shots out there. Couldn’t recover. Conditions were just tough. It was very windy. Hadn’t been that windy all week. Front nine played tough. Then, once the fairways were soaked, it was very hard controlling the golf ball.
“Although the conditions were tough at the start, I felt good. I felt like I was under control. I was kind of annoyed at myself. I hit a really weak putt on like the 6th, and then I felt like, Oh, I’ve let one go there, better toughen up a little bit and not do that.
“It was just so sloppy the rest of the way. Sam, we must have looked horrible, both of us playing like that. But that’s what can happen in these things. If you get a little off, you’re just severely punished.”
Ryan Fox followed up his magnificent win in Canada with another impressive week when he finished with a round of 69 to finish in a share of 19th, his second-best finish in a major, a reflection of his growing confidence on the PGA Tour.
“I kind of didn’t see it the last couple of days,” said Fox who played on his own today after his playing partner, Corey Conners, was forced to withdraw with a wrist injury. “I kind of had a little patch where I made a few birdies and basically was hacking it out of the crap the rest of the day. Today was really, really solid. Probably left a couple out there on the greens, but for the most part, I kept myself out of trouble all day.
“I think I only missed two or three fairways and only missed two or three greens as well. If you can do that around here, it feels like there is a score. I can see the other way pretty quickly if you start missing shots. It just eats you up.”
Fox has been on a busy schedule of late and it does not get any easier being in the field for next week’s Signature event in Connecticut. I definitely won’t be working on much. It’s been a pretty long — probably six weeks for me from Myrtle Beach. I qualified for PGA last minute. Then, got into Memorial because of that. Then Canada and got into here last minute from Canada. I’d say I’m running on fumes a little bit.
“Today was just trusting that the golf game was in good shape, and I hit a lot of good shots, had a good feeling out there. That will kind of be the same next week, just go and trust that the game’s in decent shape and see what happens.”
Fox added US$267,000 to his already significant earnings which now mount to more than US$3.5 million for the season to date.
Jason Day was 23rd, Marc Leishman 38th and Cam Davis 64th.
