US Open champion on 'crazy' reaction from fans and bumping into Bob MacIntyre's manager
Golf’s latest major winner says he’ll ‘never get sick’ of being the centre of attention
He may have pipped Bob MacIntyre in last month’s US Open but there is no chance of J.J. Spaun being ‘Public Enemy No 1’ with home fans in this week’s Genesis Scottish Open.
If his pre-event press conference is anything to go by, the American is an extremely likeable individual and getting the respect he deserves for finishing birdie-birdie at Oakmont to become a first-time major winner.
“Two seconds ago before I walked in the tent,” he replied, smiling, to being asked when the last time someone had congratulated him about his title triumph in Pennsylvania.
“Literally in passing. It's crazy. But it doesn't get old. Everyone wants to come up to you, which is cool, but man, I mean, how does Scottie [Scheffler] do it? I guess people just get sick and tired of telling him congrats, they just don't tell him after a while (laughing). It's awesome. I'll never get sick of it.”
Spaun landed his win after losing out to Rory McIlroy in a play-off for The Players Championship at Sawgrass in March. He was playing in the ISCO Championship, the other event co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, 12 months ago but is now among eight of the top ten players in the world teeing up in East Lothian this week.
“Just had a lot of cool people reach out to me,” he said in reply to being asked what the highlight had been so far as the US Open champion. “Like Jack Nicklaus wrote a very nice letter to me. It was funny, I saw him in passing at the Memorial Tournament, the last tournament I played before the US Open, and he just, you know, stopped me. I never really engaged with him before that, and he just said I was playing really well.
“I said, ‘yeah, it would have been nice to win’. He's like, ‘you keep knocking on that door, you're going to knock one down’ and, literally, the next week that happened. He remembered that and sent me a nice note, which was really cool.”
Spaun, who is playing with recent KLM Open winner Connor Syme in the opening two rounds, also told nice story about MacIntyre’s manager, Iain Stoddart, after the Oban man had clapped Spaun’s long birdie putt on the 72nd hole at Oakmont as he watched on TV.
“I actually ran into his manager the morning after the US Open and he was happy,” he said of Stoddart. “He was really delighted for me and happy and he said, ‘you know what, that's okay, because what you did to Bob, Rory did that to Bob here at the Scottish Open the year before and then Bob comes back and wins the next year. So he said, ‘now we're winning the following year. It's all good!’”
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