J.J. Spaun is happy to be in England this week; he’s clear on that point.
“My family and I actually vacation over here in the wintertime,” he said after the second round of the BMW PGA Championship, flagship event of the DP World Tour. “So any excuse to come to the U.K., and England, especially, we try to make it happen. It’s nice the way the schedule worked out for me this fall to be here.”
That wasn’t just a throwaway line to appease the local press; Spaun and his family really do love England.
“We go to the Cotswolds in mid-December for a couple weeks and just kind of enjoy the English culture. We feel the Christmas spirit a lot when we are over here,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun, just my wife and my two children. We have a good time and hang out at the pubs and relax.”
There is something bittersweet buried in Spaun’s initial descriptor — the way the schedule worked out — that undoubtedly has him feeling something else, too. He’s at Wentworth in part because he won’t be in Chicago next week; he was left off the U.S. Presidents Cup team.
Spaun finished 10th on the points list but didn’t wrap up the summer in his finest form; he failed to record a top 20 in his final five starts and then, most relevant of all, withdrew from the Tour Championship with injury. That may have sealed his fate. Still, Spaun’s snub came as something of a surprise.
“Yeah, I think it was disappointing to be left off,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t really — I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest.
“But yeah, I wanted to continue to play golf, whether it was going to be here or at the Presidents Cup in Medinah. I always had this circled, if I didn’t get in Medinah.”
Spaun played well at Bethpage Black in last year’s Ryder Cup, which marked his U.S. team debut; he went 2-1-0 and was one of just three Americans with a winning record by week’s end.
“Yeah, I kind of hung my hat on my experience with the Ryder Cup last year. Made it to the Tour Championship this year. I won in San Antonio [at the Valero Texas Open]. I kind of did everything I could. I was the odd man out.”
He’s not the only American snub to be teeing it up at Wentworth this week; Ryan Gerard, another could-have-been member of the U.S. team, held the 36-hole lead. Spaun sat sixth at the halfway mark, with a little extra motivation to contend on the weekend.
“Definitely. That’s the goal,” he said.
Then came Saturday’s third round. Spaun played what he called “J.J. golf,” which essentially means going mistake-free, and his five-birdie, one-bogey effort was enough to boost him to 12 under par, just one shot back of Manuel Elvira and Filippo Celli on a jam-packed leaderboard heading to Sunday’s final round. (Gerard slipped to T16.) And if there was any question about extra motivation…
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