J.J. Spaun faces the most important day of his sporting career this Monday. He is competing for victory in the THE PLAYERS Championship in a three-hole playoff against Rory McIlroy. He is 34 years old, born in Los Angeles, and to date, he has only one win on the PGA Tour: the Valero Texas Open in 2022. He has not played any playoffs on the American circuit and only played one on the Web.com Tour against Collin Morikawa and Ollie Schniederjans. He won the second.
Spaun has earned his place in the playoff on his own merits. Firstly, because he managed to finish as the leader on the third day with a score of -12. Secondly, because he was able to overcome a poor start with two bogeys on holes 5 and 8. Thirdly, because he made an extraordinary approach on the 16th to secure a birdie. And fourthly, because he managed the enormous pressure on his shoulders to make two pars on the 17th and 18th to tie with Rory McIlroy. All of this is true, but there is a very key fifth point in his Sunday round. It happened on the 9th hole, right after making a bogey on the 8th.
He hit a good drive, and his ball ended up on the fairway, about 310 yards from the tee. He had a second shot of 275 to the hole. Par 5, as you know. Both the shot to the green and the layup on this hole are delicate options. Spaun aimed for a ball that could enter through the narrow front of the green, but he didn’t succeed. It opened up a bit too much and ended up in the rough. Very bad. The ball was very buried. The veteran caddie Bones Mackay, a television commentator on the course during THE PLAYERS, said it was “horrible.”
From there, he had to hit the third shot. A birdie was almost a dream, and the par had to be worked for. We insist: he had just made his second bogey of the day on the 8th. Upon reaching the ball’s position, Spaun found that a sprinkler was in his way, so he requested relief. It’s a routine drop without penalty. It was obviously granted. He set about finding the relief point, the closest to his ball where he would no longer be obstructed by the sprinkler and without gaining distance to the hole. From there, a club again without gaining distance to the hole to perform the drop.
With the relief point chosen and the club distance, he still couldn’t get out of the thick rough area. Normally, dropping from the knee would leave it badly placed again, very buried. However, studying the situation, he suddenly discovered there was another sprinkler within distance. Then, he asked the PGA Tour referee if he could drop next to this new sprinkler and relieve himself a second time. The referee said there was no problem.
The key is that with that second relief, Spaun gained enough distance to drop on the fairway. It was a masterful move. A moment that could define a tournament. The ball ended up perfectly, he executed a wonderful approach from about 45 metres, and made the putt for birdie. Almost certainly, he saved a stroke and possibly even two.
The head of rules of the PGA Tour, during the television broadcast, used this story to remind that the rules are there to help players, and for this reason, it is very important to know them. Spaun showed that he knows them and had the ingenuity to apply them in a situation that could mark, who knows, his future as a player.
