{"id":13892,"date":"2026-06-03T01:03:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/13892\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T01:03:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:03:53","slug":"j-j-spaun-is-still-coming-to-grips-with-his-surreal-us-open-truth-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/13892\/","title":{"rendered":"J.J. Spaun is still coming to grips with his \u2018surreal\u2019 US Open truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

J.J. Spaun sat quietly Tuesday morning at Shinnecock Hills while USGA officials conducted a media day presentation for next month\u2019s U.S. Open at the venerable Long Island 18-hole icon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still can\u2019t believe I won this tournament<\/a>, honestly,\u2019\u2019 Spaun said, sounding like the most humble major champion ever.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old Spaun, a late bloomer, will defend his title when the first round begins at Shinnecock on June 18.<\/p>\n

He called his existence the past 11 months as the reigning U.S. Open champion, in only his second start in the major, \u201cvery strange.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember getting to the Travelers Championship [the week after the U.S. Open] and I was paired with Scottie [Scheffler, the world No. 1] and all of a sudden there were like 10,000 people around the first tee,\u2019\u2019 Spaun said. \u201cI got to go first, which was nice. They announced me as the U.S. Open champion and it was almost like I had to step off and really let that sink in \u2026 just to hear the crowd go crazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like a louder roar for me than when they introduced Scottie. So that felt good for once. But it was so surreal. Whether I\u2019m not feeling great confidence-wise or whatever, just to hear that every time I tee off is just a really good feeling to inspire myself again, whatever may be going on, just to reflect on what I accomplished. I\u2019m just so honored to be the U.S. Open champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaun struggled early in the season with four missed cuts in his first seven events with a top finish tying for 24th.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

J.J. Spaun celebrates after hitting a long birdie put on the 18th hole at Oakmont to clinch his U.S. Open win last year. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Then he won the Valero Texas Open in April, feeling like he \u201cvalidated\u2019\u2019 his U.S. Open win. But then he missed the cut at the Masters. Last week in the Cadillac Championship at Doral he finished in a tie for 14th.<\/p>\n

Tuesday was Spaun\u2019s first time at Shinnecock.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice stepping onto the property just to get familiarized with what to expect visually and get logistically comfortable with what\u2019s going on,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cBut with majors, I try not to dwell too much. I\u2019ve learned my lesson. My first time playing the Masters, I won the week before so I kind of rushed there, and I played fine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

J.J. Spaun holds the U.S. Open trophy after his win in the event last year. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the second time I wanted to really take my time, so I got there Saturday and I didn\u2019t play great. I felt like I was there waiting for Thursday [the opening round] way too long.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

He said he changed his schedule for last year\u2019s U.S. Open at Oakmont to arrive Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I\u2019d never been there, I felt like that was plenty of time to prepare,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI\u2019ll probably do the same thing here \u2026 get here Sunday, be on the course Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I\u2019ll just try to kind of do what I did last year. It seemed to have worked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J.J. Spaun sat quietly Tuesday morning at Shinnecock Hills while USGA officials conducted a media day presentation for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1561,1592,1045],"class_list":["post-13892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-j-j-spaun","tag-j-j-spaun","tag-open-champion","tag-shinnecock-hills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}