When it's really not your day... don't quit.

2025 US Open Champion JJ Spaun was having as bad a day as a guy can have, right up until the moment it became the best day of his life.

JJ Spaun, and his caddie Mark Carens, after Spaun drains the bomb on 18 that locks the title.

Some days, it’s really not your day. You get those? It starts with banging your toe on nightstand when you get out of bed. Then there’s a text you don’t want anything to do with. Then the toilet won’t flush. And the car won’t start.

And we all do a different version of the same thing - we turn our heads to the sky in resignation and say something to ourselves like - this ain’t gonna be my day. We accept the hardship with not a thought that things are gonna turn today. Not today. We largely give up.

Because today isn’t my day. Right? A guy or a gal can only take so much. Right?

And then, there’s JJ Spaun, and Father’s Day, Sunday June 15, 2025 and the terrible, horrible, day that started poorly and got so much worse, with all of it happening in front of millions of people. LIVE. ON TV!

The very first part wasn’t on TV of course. The very first part happened when his young daughter woke up in the hotel room at 3:00 in the morning vomiting due to a stomach bug, and Dad had to run to a local drugstore to get medicine before work because that’s what Dad’s do.

Even on Father’s Day.

The immediate hours following the drug store run for JJ Spaun - the guy with only one previous career tour win, the guy who missed 10 of the first 15 cuts last season, the guy who a year ago almost quit the tour and was practicing at local public courses to stay, in his words, “rooted” in the sport, the unlikely journeyman who was in contention and in Sunday’s penultimate pairing with Viktor Hovland - went as badly as humanly possible. No, worse than that.

What’s the one? Majors aren’t won - they’re lost. Especially on Sunday’s.

JJ Spaun lost the US Open on the front nine on Sunday. It wasn’t his day. Like so many out there yesterday, he dropped down the leaderboard like the accompanying falling raindrops and out of contention.

It was over.

Until it wasn’t. How the hell did he stay with it? How the hell could anyone? Here’s the thing though about JJ Spaun - he’s had a lot of practice not quitting on days that go horribly wrong.