When you’re playing for a Players Championship crown, and more cash than you’ve ever earned in a single event, and the type of recognition enjoyed by all the pros you grew up watching on Golf Channel, and the dude you’re battling is one of the best to ever to do it, and there’s a huge moat yards to your left, and there’s pine straw under your ball, your head tends to move quicker than your clubhead speed. It’s understandable. Folks get it.
Mark Carens seemingly did.
The caddie’s boss, J.J. Spaun, had fought tooth and nail and from tee to green Sunday at TPC Sawgrass, starting the Players final round with the lead, before coughing it up, then rallying, and now, walking down the dogleg-right, par-4 18th, he was in a tie at the top with Rory McIlroy, the world No. 2. Spaun’s rank? A respectable 57th. Over 13 years as a pro, the 34-year-old from L.A. had carved out a nice living. He’s won once, in 2022 at the Valero Texas Open. He’s won over $14 mil in prize money. Tidy living.
But not spectacular. A Players victory, though, could drop the word not. Winning would give you an enviable title on your Wikipedia page: “Players Championship winner.” But Spaun was having some issues. His tee ball on 18 had drifted right and was now sitting just off the fairway, on top of the pine straw. He needed to assess. How would he play this? From 198 yards out, he’d gladly take a center-of-the-green ball or something better, but aggressiveness would also flirt with the water that runs the entire left side of the hole.
And then there was McIlroy.
Up ahead, on the green, he was putting for — well, Spaun didn’t know. But he wanted the answer. He asked Jim “Bones” Mackay, the NBC on-course analyst who was walking with Spaun — and shared on the broadcast the five words Carens said that may just turn out to help his man win.
“Guys, I thought it was really interesting walking down this fairway,” Mackay started.
“J.J. walked over to me and asked me what Rory was up to in terms of what he was putting for up on the 18th green. It turns out it was for par.
“J.J.’s caddie then walked over to him, put his arm around his shoulder and said, ‘Let’s stay in the moment.’”
The words were short. The words were huge. Carens has a knack for that; one of his previous employers, Si Woo Kim, won the 2017 Players. The words also appeared to work. On Spaun’s second shot, he maneuvered his ball to the right side of the green, about 30 feet from the hole. His birdie effort came up just inches short, but he made par, and now he has a three-hole playoff date with McIlroy on Monday morning at 9.
Sunday evening, Spaun talked more about the head games of the moment. The three-shot deficit, after the one-shot, 54-hole lead, hurt. But he said it freed him up.
“I just tried to just fight back,” Spaun said. “I kind of went with the odds. I had nothing to lose. Now I’m trying to catch Rory, and I can’t really control what he does, but I can control what I do, and I just started committing to my shots and my swing and trusting it more. Because it’s easy to kind of — now when I’m hunting, it’s easier to let it go. Whereas, starting the round, I was a little tentative, a little scared and stuff. I think it put me in a pretty comfortable spot to finish off the round.”
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Of course, there’s still more golf left.
But Spaun has a thought there, too.
Just one.
“I mean, everyone expects him to win,” Spaun said of McIlroy. “I don’t think a lot of people expect me to win. I expect myself to win. That’s all I care about.”
Is that a positive place for him to be in?
“Yeah, sure,” Spaun said. “I like having the opportunity to play. I like having the chance to win, and I like being in the spotlight now. I proved it to myself, coming down the stretch, playing those holes, that tomorrow it could go my way. Maybe I am the one that everyone thinks should win.
“If so, that would be great.”
