It was perhaps the biggest day of his sporting life and J.J Spaun had to wake up early to get medicine after his daughter started vomiting at 3 a.m.—but his performance at the U.S. Open ultimately did not suffer.
After three days of competition, Spaun was only one shot behind the leader heading into the final round.
It was Father’s Day. And his tee time would arrive soon.
But Spaun first had to run out to get medicine from CVS for his sick daughter. But thanks to a masterful final stretch of play—including a 65-foot putt on the last hole—he got the win too, capturing the 125th U.S. Open Championship at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“It was kind of a rough start to the morning,” Spaun said in his championship press conference, revisiting the stomach bug story and his CVS run. “I am not blaming that on my start (he bogeyed five of the first six holes), but it just kind of fit the mold of what was going on—the chaos.”
In the end, Spaun, a 34-year-old California resident who also suffers from Type-1 Diabetes, recovered and took the lead with a magical drive and a birdie on hole No. 17. He added another birdie on 18 with the incredible 65-foot-putt, as his two daughters—both healthy again—looked on.
Spaun (-1) was the only competitor to finish the tournament under par. It was only the second win of his PGA career and it arrived after he entered the tournament with odds of about 150:1.
And he accomplished all of that following an early-morning trip to CVS too.
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“It’s definitely like a storybook fairy-tale ending,” Spaun said in a video that appeared on ESPN. “Kind of the underdog, you know. Fighting back, not giving up, never quitting. With the rain and everything and then the putt, you couldn’t write a better story. I’m just so fortunate to be on the receiving end of that.”
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