Before he was a U.S. Open champion on Sunday, J.J. Spaun told his wife they should make a quick one-night trip to New York City en route to the Travelers Championship, which tees off today in Cromwell, Conn.
She wasn’t convinced, although turns out that trip became basically mandatory anyway.
Spaun closed the 2025 U.S. Open with a two-over 72, finishing one under overall and beating Robert MacIntyre by two. Since then it’s been a whirlwind. And a major part of that was the champion’s media tour in NYC.
“It was crazy. I got whisked off the green and then back onto the green probably around 8:45 p.m. and then did the whole formalities of the ceremony, signing a bunch of memorabilia, obviously getting the trophy, seeing it get engraved,” Spaun said Wednesday, speaking to the media at the Travelers Championship. “The USGA did a great job of kind of giving us our own little room to kind of hang out and chill all night until whenever we wanted to leave. We didn’t leave until about 1 a.m.”
Back at where he was staying in Pittsburgh, Spaun took a quick shower then tried to catch up on all the texts and phone calls he received. He’s heard from George Lopez, Mookie Betts, Scott Van Pelt, Curtis Strange, Hale Irwin and a host of others. He only slept for about three hours Sunday night.
“Then we were off to New York City,” he said. “Had a nice dinner with my family on Monday night. We went to do all the media 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Didn’t finish — it was literally nonstop. Didn’t finish until 3:30, 4 p.m., hopped in a car, got driven up here. That was about 3 1/2 hours. Didn’t walk through the front door of the hotel until 8 p.m.
“Finally got some good sleep, though. I slept about eight hours, which was nice. The last two nights, I got the same amount as I did last night combined.”
It’s been a life-changing week for Spaun, and more doorways are starting to open now. He’s sixth in the FedEx Cup standings (he’s never played in a Tour Championship) and he’s third in the Ryder Cup standings (he’s never made the team).
The captain of that Ryder Cup team, Keegan Bradley, had some advice for Spaun this week. Bradley won the 2011 PGA Championship in his major debut.
“Winning the U.S. Open is going to be a huge boost to that sort of inner ego, I guess you could say, to keep that self-belief alive and burning,” Spaun said. “I need to enjoy this, like Keegan told me that yesterday. He said, ‘You need to enjoy this. Do your best to just enjoy it. It’s easy to kind of let it out the window and get right into the next week and forget about it for a while, but just do your best to enjoy it.’
“I’m planning to enjoy it next week, that’s for sure. At least for next week.”
The Travelers, the last Signature Event of the season, is at TPC River Highlands in Connecticut. The Golf Channel telecast begins at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday. Spaun is paired with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler for the first two rounds. They’ll tee off at 1:45 p.m. ET on Thursday.
