PONTE VEDRA BEACH — The moments in an interview room don’t get much more surreal than they were on Monday morning in the media center at the Players Championship. As a fully composed and engaging J.J. Spaun processed his three-hole aggregate playoff loss to Rory McIlroy, something caught his eye. On the screen at the back of the room, Golf Channel was replaying Spaun’s fateful 8-iron shot at TPC Sawgrass’ island 17th that flew the green into the water and led to a triple-bogey 6.
Those three strokes ended up being the difference between a career-defining victory for Spaun and the awkward offers of consolation on his otherwise excellent week.
“Can I watch it? I haven’t seen it,” Spaun said, stopping himself in the middle of an answer to watch his shot.
“Look how high it is. It’s floating,” he offered in a strange bit of commentary. “I almost wanted to say ‘get up’ because it just looked like it was going to be short.” Turning back to his audience, Spaun added, “Anyways, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it was long.”
There are few things that Spaun would take back from what has to be considered a career-best performance, even if he has a single tour win in the Valero Texas Open. Maybe his putt on the 72nd hole on Sunday evening, when his ball came up about two rolls short of victory on a birdie try.
Spaun definitely was not backing off his choice of choosing to hit an 8-iron to what he judged was 136 yards in the tricky winds after watching McIlroy flight a 9-iron to the safe back-third of the green.
“I was never thinking anything other than 8-iron,” Spaun said. “We were warming up on the TrackMan this morning in a similar direction and getting kind of dialed in with what kind of shot I’d have to hit to fight the wind and carry the number that we were needing. It was just kind of like a nice chip 8-iron.
Rory McIlroy celebrates while J.J. Spaun shakes hands with McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond.
Richard Heathcote
“Pulled an 8-iron, and even after Rory hit 9, he’s easily a club longer than me. I don’t know if I flighted it too well, but it just went through the wind. I couldn’t even tell where it was going to be. I didn’t know what to tell it, like sit, go. If anything, I was leaning more towards go.
“But it was a great shot. It was probably six, seven feet left of the pin, just perfect if it was the right distance. I couldn’t believe it was long. It just wasn’t my luck of the gust, I guess.”
When the three-hole playoff, forced when McIlroy and Spaun tied at 12 under, began at just after 9 a.m. EDT, Spaun was playing catch-up from the outset, with McIlroy piping a drive into the fairway at the par-5 16th while Spaun found the right rough. Spaun’s second skirted the edge of the water before getting into the greenside bunker—remarkably, the first time Spaun was in that predicament for the tournament. McIlroy put his second to 33 feet and eventually had to make a five-foot tester for birdie while Spaun parred.
They arrived at the 17th with the stiff wind swirling, but a television graphic showed that the breeze was possibly being blocked by the grandstands. McIlroy noted in his press conference that he was convinced before he got to the tee that the shot for him was a 9-iron.
“I practiced this shot on the range,” McIlroy said. “I just turned around and basically hit balls towards the third green, just to sort of replicate the wind I was going to get on 17. I had the TrackMan out, and I have this little three-quarter shot, and my 9-iron goes 147 with that shot. But with the wind it was going right around that 130 number.
“I felt like it was a little more sheltered by the green than it was on the tee. When my ball was in the air, I was telling it to get down, and obviously, J.J. hit his up in the air, I couldn’t believe that it went straight through the wind like that.”
With Spaun finding the green with his third shot from the drop area and three-putting for 6, McIlroy didn’t exactly seize on it. He three-putted for bogey to have a three-shot lead going into the last.
At the 18th, both players sliced their drives well to the right and had to punch out. And in an anticlimactic finish, McIlroy putted out for bogey while Spaun picked up his coin and walked over to offer his congratulations.
Spaun then stood silently on the green, his eyes closed, as McIlroy did his champion’s interview that was played over the PA system.
In the interview room, the 34-year-old Los Angeles native could not have been more gracious in recounting the previous 24 hours or the winding path of his career.
“Yeah, it just felt like a never-ending week, honestly,” Spaun said. “I was hoping to get home last night to see my wife and kids. Even before the delay and all that happened, I had a flight ready to go. I didn’t feel nervous. I felt really good last night. I slept better than I did Saturday night. Slept better than I did Friday night.
“But then when I got to the tee, I was like, ooh, it kind of hit me. Whereas when I played with Rory Saturday, I was pretty nervous, especially being one back, and I was nervous all night, or anxious. But then when I got on the tee, I was just, like, ready to go.”
As difficult as the loss is, Spaun has found new confidence in his game only a season after he was telling himself that he’d had a nice career and he’d be satisfied with it. He’s already played eight tournament this season, and a T-3 in his first start in the Sony Open in Hawaii was built upon with a T-15 in the Farmers Insurance Open. Early in March, Spaun opened with a 64 and contended deep into Sunday before tying for second, two shots out of the playoff won by rookie Joe Highsmith.
“This is probably the best golf I’ve played maybe in my career consistently,” Spaun said. “I had a chance to win at Sony, had a pretty good chance to win at Cognizant, had a chance to win this week.
“But to go from where I was a year ago today or to start the week, yeah, I’m pretty proud of where I’ve been able to dig deep and kind of get some self-belief and get some confidence to play some good golf.
A year ago this was the first cut I made all season. Now I lost in a playoff. Kind of a big flip there.”
