PONTE VEDRA BEACH — This is the moment that justifies it all, isn’t it? The practice sessions measured not in hours but in calloused hands and aching muscles, the refinement of a craft that can never be mastered, working through frustration and wondering if time has been squandered on something that will never come. All for the possibility that, one day, it might all make sense.
Even after that final putt on 18—a four-footer for par that didn’t come close to finding its target—J.J. Spaun sits at 10 under through two days at the Players Championship, in contention heading into the weekend. Yet what has brought him to the precipice of opportunity is the realization this opportunity isn’t what he once believed it to be.
At 34, Spaun has weathered nearly a decade on tour. “Journeyman” feels too dismissive for a man who has carved out a place among this circuit, yet his resume—one win in 226 previous starts, having twice lost his tour card, and never qualifying for the Tour Championship—reflects the meritocracy of professional golf. This year, however, something has shifted. He arrived at Sawgrass riding momentum from a T-2 finish in Palm Beach and a T-3 to open his season in Hawaii. Every week a tournament is framed as potentially life-altering, and objectively, what’s at stake over the next 36 holes is substantial: a five-year tour exemption, three years of major invitations, a victory that (by points) would put him in the running for the Ryder Cup team. For a player of Spaun’s standing, these stakes should be all-consuming. Instead he’s discovered something both profound and disarmingly simple: they’re not.
Following his Friday 68, which puts him a stroke off the clubhouse lead as the afternoon wave begins, Spaun was asked about the catalyst behind his play this season. He initially credited momentum from last year’s finish before pivoting to the fundamental truth.
“I think a little bit of mindset change,” Spaun said. “Like this is my ninth year, kind of a change of perspective, I guess you could say, for golf in general and life. Maybe that’s what it is. But, yeah, it’s good to kind of ride this wave that I’m on right now.”
The natural follow-up—what exactly constituted this shift in mindset—prompted a response that transcended the typical golfer platitudes, offering a glimpse of the person behind the play.
“I just have so many responsibilities with like my family and my kids and just wanting to be a dad and balancing life and family life,” Spaun said. “It’s dawned on me that golf is just golf. You hear a lot of people say that when they first have children, and I didn’t really think that. I was still like golf, golf, golf. But now that my oldest one is 4 and, you know, there’s lots of emotion when I leave and when I come back. So it puts things in perspective on what really matters.”
Spaun spoke candidly about the weight of absence—the guilt that shadows him as he navigates the nomadic existence required by the tour calendar, missing moments in his children’s lives. It is a tension without resolution.
“It’s tough. I don’t know how to deal with it,” Spaun explained. “I try to talk to them as much as I can, FaceTime, but when you have a little one that’s just always asking where you’re at and how much they miss you and to come home, it’s tough. My family fortunately knows that daddy’s got a job and this is what I got to do.”
Spaun understands he’s not the only one shouldering the cost of his ambitions. When Spaun travels the country, his wife shoulders the weight of parenthood—managing their children’s lives largely alone, with only occasional relief—a sacrifice that gnaws at his conscience daily. “I mean she said since the start of the season I’ve been home for one week,” Spaun noted, the stark arithmetic hanging in the air. “So that’s kind of tough.”
His acknowledgment came without self-pity or martyrdom. When someone suggested a perspective check—”You should try to be in the Navy and away from home for seven months”—Spaun responded with disarming honesty: “I tried that angle and it doesn’t work. I tried. It doesn’t work.” Some voids can’t be rationalized away, no matter how valid the comparison.
Spaun is impossible not to root for. Warm, genuinely funny, grounded. Four years ago, while visiting a weathered public course in Scottsdale for an assignment, this reporter stumbled upon Spaun working on his putting stroke. While most tour professionals in this golf mecca sequester themselves at exclusive country clubs, here stood Spaun—statistically among the planet’s most elite 0.01 percent of golfers—practicing on … well, a goat track, explaining that practicing alongside everyday golfers kept his perspective firmly rooted.
Friday’s conversation served as a reminder that while golf represents his passion and livelihood, it exists within a larger constellation of meaning. This isn’t revolutionary; David Duval famously pursued a major championship his entire career only to discover its hollow echo upon capturing it. Still, as we approach a weekend of drama at one of golf’s greatest theaters, it is worth remembering that behind each swing are multidimensional lives—people negotiating the same questions as the rest of us.
Spaun has earned his place in the arena this weekend. Perhaps Sunday will find him faltering; perhaps he’ll continue his brilliant play. For a guy who’s never contended at a big tournament, it could be the most important 36 holes of his life. Should victory come his way, he understands it won’t be what ultimately matters—rather, a means to what does.
“Hopefully it will pay off dividends in the end when things are all said and done,” Spaun reflected on his current sacrifices, “and we can kind of have a good time together.”
