PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | J.J. Spaun knows what everyone was thinking. Spaun understands why everyone was thinking it. Spaun didn’t care what everyone was thinking.
As David vs. Goliath golf stories go, the one-time PGA Tour winner taking on the 27-time tour winner in a three-hole aggregate playoff on 16, 17 and 18 at TPC Sawgrass with the Players Championship trophy and $4.5 million on the line certainly fits the bill of mismatches. But Spaun already proved to everyone on a long, drawn-out and dramatic Sunday that he wasn’t yielding to the narrative.
“I showed myself that I don’t have to shy away from the moment,” Spaun said. “I think in the past I’ve done that, just kind of been afraid of being in that spotlight, being in that pressure, being worried about failure.”
The moment, however, was really big and the TPC Sawgrass finishing stage is fraught with opportunities to fail. And when one of the greatest golfers of the 21st century is applying the pressure with skills few possess, even the gamest underdog can find himself overmatched.
Spaun finally buckled on the fifth day in this three-hole aggregate playoff against Rory McIlroy. Already behind after McIlroy made easy work birdieing the par-5 16th, Spaun misjudged the different wind and sailed his tee shot over the island 17th – his first water ball of the week.
“It was a perfect club. I hit it, I guess, just too good,” Spaun said of his 9-iron. “Kind of went right through the wind.”
The three-putt triple left him three behind even after McIlroy three-putted himself. It was all but over at that point. When McIlroy carefully finished his bogey on 18, Spaun didn’t even have to finish his own.
None of it should take away from what Spaun accomplished at Sawgrass. He started the final round with a one-shot lead but was four ahead of the biggest name on the leaderboard – McIlroy. And everybody’s favorite came out throwing haymakers with a short-range birdie and eagle on the first two holes to pretty much erase the gap.
When weather prompted a four-hour suspension, McIlroy had seized a one-shot lead. When play finally resumed, McIlroy’s margin almost immediately grew to three shots when he birdied 12 and Spaun bogeyed 11. He was still up three with five holes to play.
Instead of getting rattled and rolling over to the presumed inevitable, Spaun got busy believing in himself when most people didn’t.
“Once that bogey kind of hit me, I just tried to just fight back,” said Spaun. “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 – 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.”
“It’s hard to not feel discouraged a little bit, but nothing but positives.”
J.J. Spaun
McIlroy played the final five holes in 1-over, making a bogey on 14 and missing birdie chances from under 6 feet on 15 and 12 feet on the par-5 16th to open the door for Spaun to catch him with kick-in birdies at 14 and 16. It was Spaun, in fact, who very nearly stole the trophy down the stretch in regulation. His pitch from a similar spot to where McIlroy was left of the par-5 16th green nearly fell for eagle and his 30-foot birdie putt on the last pulled up 4 inches short in the heart of the cup.
That was as close as Spaun would come to felling Goliath in a season in which he’s nearly won three times. “A year ago this was the first cut I made all season,” he said. “Now I lost in a playoff. Kind of a big flip there.”
But even with the loss, Spaun climbs to a career-best No. 25 in the world and all but assures himself a spot in all four majors.
“It’s hard to not feel discouraged a little bit,” Spaun admitted, “but nothing but positives. Putting myself in contention and giving myself a chance to win in a playoff, if someone told me that would happen to start the week, I would totally take it. So nothing but positives to take from it and hopefully I can just learn from this and get it done next time.”
Scott Michaux
