J.J. Spaun rewards his team with St. Andrews trip

ST. LOUIS – The J.J. Spaun U.S. Open victory tour included another memorable stop last month: the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

Aye, ahead of competing in the Genesis Scottish Open, Spaun made all the arrangements and treated his caddie, Mark Carens, and swing coach, Adam Schriber, to a round at the Home of Golf. It was the first time for Spaun and Schriber and the second for Carens, who had played there 40 years ago as a teenager with his father.     

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“It was a boys trip-slash-scouting trip for next year,” said Spaun of the site of the 155thBritish Open. 

Spaun became friends with James Day, the owner of Urban Golf, an indoor driving range and club fitting studio in London, where Spaun likes to hit balls while vacationing there around the Christmas holiday. Day is a member at the R&A, and he’d offered to show Spaun around St. Andrews, which he finally took him up on it.

“I figured this would be the perfect time to do it,” he said. 

What did Spaun take away from the trip that he can apply to next year’s Open? “I learned you can hit it as far left as you want,” he said. “That was the glaring thing to me that stuck out. But I loved everything about being there. The place is just majestic.”

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Spaun said one of the best parts about winning a major has been sharing the experiences with his team. “Making the Ryder Cup, playing the Hero World Challenge were things we’d never done before,” he said. 

Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee, a former student of Schriber’s, said it best on what Spaun’s victory meant to a coach who has always done it his way. “You’re talking about a guy that has been giving his heart and soul to the game and to his players for 35, 40 years,” he told Golf magazine. “And he finally had a horse that won the Kentucky Derby.”

Spaun is grateful for the help his team has given him to go from journeyman pro to a career-best of fifth in the world last year. [He entered the week at No. 16.] “Adam reconstructed my swing and my mindset,” Spaun told Golf Magazine.

Both Carens and Schriber received a nice Christmas bonus from Spaun too, who said of Schriber, “I didn’t know what to get him.” Turns out a tee time at the Old Course was the perfect way to say thanks for all you do.

“Money is great but the experience of playing the Old Course and the fact that he went to all the trouble to set it up for us, you just can’t put a price on that,” Schriber said. “I’ll remember that day forever. I can’t wait to play it again.”

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Spaun returns to ‘Old Faithful’

On Thursday, Spaun rode a hot putter to shooting 6-under 64 at Bellerive Country Club and a share of the first-round lead at the BMW Championship.

It’s hard to believe, but Spaun has changed his putter twice this season, benching the LAB putter that he used to sink a 64-foot birdie putt on the 18th green at Oakmont to clinch the 2025 U.S. Open.  

“Put the old faithful back in, my old LAB putter. So it was on timeout for about two months and, you know, kind of like kids, like, you know, when they’re not behaving, you put them in timeout for a little bit and then they start listening better and cooperating,” Spaun said. “So, I think it learned its lesson being in timeout.”

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Did it ever. Spaun made 132 feet of putts, including a 30-foot downhill birdie at the second hole. What a change from a week ago when the final straw in deciding to make the putter change happened on Sunday in Memphis.

“When I was just feeling very uncomfortable over 3-footers, you know that’s not ideal,” he said.

Earlier this season, Spaun switched out of his zero-torque head to a LAB OZ.1i HS, a heel-shafted putter. Then he changed brands, gaming a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R putter with toe hang. The honeymoon phase lasted only so long. Time will tell if the 2-3 months in time out will work.

Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: J.J. Spaun rewards his team with St. Andrews trip