Favorites at The Open, J.J. Spaun's future and how Ryder Cup teams are shaping up

OAKMONT, Pa. -- The U.S. Open, the third major championship of the season, produced the most unlikely champion in J.J. Spaun, who won in thrilling fashion with back-to-back birdies on the final two holes at Oakmont Country Club on Sunday.

Spaun was the only golfer to finish under par at 1-under 279, and he was the lone survivor on a day when the rain and wind made Oakmont even more treacherous.

The final major championship of the season, the Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland on July 17-20, is a month away.

Who will be the favorites in The Open? Will Spaun's unlikely victory propel him to more wins? What about the Ryder Cup?

What do you expect from J.J. Spaun the rest of the season?

Mark Schlabach: Last season, Spaun missed the cut in 10 of his first 15 starts on the PGA Tour and was ranked 169th in the world. He was worried he might lose his tour card.

"Last year in June I was looking like I was going to lose my job, and that was when I had that moment where, 'If this is how I go out, I might as well go down swinging," Spaun said.

Spaun turned things around late in the summer, and he's been playing some of the best golf of his career this year. He tied for second at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches in February and lost to Rory McIlroy in a Monday playoff at the Players Championship. He'd been close to adding a second career victory on tour, and he finally got it done at one of the most difficult golf courses in the world.

"I think it's just perseverance," Spaun said. "I've always kind of battled through whatever it may be to kind of get to where I needed to be and get to what I wanted. I've done this before. I've had slumps kind of at every level. I've always kind of, I went back and said, 'You've done this before. You've been down before. You got out of it.' There's kind of like a little pattern, so hopefully I don't do that pattern again."

Spaun's competitors weren't all that surprised that he won the U.S. Open, which is saying something. Although Spaun might not be that familiar of a name to people who don't follow golf closely, he is considered one of the best ball-strikers in the world. His putter got hot over four days at Oakmont, which is one of the biggest reasons he won.

Paolo Uggetti: While at first glance it may seem like Spaun was a fluke U.S. Open winner, it's a testament to his evolution as a player that he was able to outlast every person in the field this week.

As his new coach Josh Gregory detailed following the final round, Spaun could have been content just being a middling PGA Tour player -- he had $17 million in career earnings prior to this week, after all -- but instead he wanted, Gregory said, to be elite.

"It'd be very easy to settle and say what I'm doing works," Gregory said. "To his credit, he said 'I need to be better.'"

For Spaun, who has always been an elite ball-striker, that meant working on his putting and his chipping, which Gregory said he has helped with. This week was proof of the work he's put in, and it will set him up well for the rest of the year. Now, whenever there is a course that prioritizes iron play, Spaun looks like he'll also be able to rely on converting once he finds the green.

While contending at the final major of the year may be far-fetched given Spaun has never played in the Open, I fully expect Spaun to be in the mix at several PGA Tour events, including the upcoming Tour Championship.

Thoughts on the Ryder Cup after the year's first three majors?

Schlabach: U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley was greeted by cheers of "USA! USA!" when he reached the 18th green at Oakmont Country Club on Sunday, and it's a battle cry he's going to hear often over the next few months.

Spaun all but secured his Ryder Cup spot by winning the U.S. Open. He's third in points, trailing only world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and two-time major winner Xander Schauffele. Bryson DeChambeau is fourth, followed by Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa. They're probably locks to make the team.

Besides Spaun winning, Russell Henley and Ben Griffin were probably the biggest moves at Oakmont. They tied for 10th at 5 over, and they're now seventh and eighth in Ryder Cup points, respectively.

The top six players in the points standings after the BMW Championship on Aug. 17 will automatically make the team; Bradley will also make six captain's choices.

Uggetti: I'm certain captain Luke Donald enjoyed seeing Viktor Hovland once again get close to securing his first major title as well as Tyrrell Hatton and even Jon Rahm, who nearly backdoored himself into contention, performing well. They all finished inside the top 10 and will all certainly be at Bethpage even if Rahm and Hovland are currently outside the top-6 in the European rankings at the moment.

Someone who is inside the top-6 is Robert MacIntyre, whose Sunday run to second place helped him score his best-ever finish in a major and bump his name all the way up to fourth in Ryder Cup standings.

MacIntyre was considered the last man two years ago in Rome, but he more than held his own going 2-0-1. On Tour this season, MacIntyre has four top-10 finishes, and that kind of result at a course like Oakmont will certainly strengthen his case and put him in a great position to return to the team in September.

Too-early thoughts on The Open Championship?

Schlabach: Scheffler battled his swing and his putter for 72 holes at Oakmont, but he managed to tie for seventh at 4 over for another top-10 finish at a major. Even at less than his best, Scheffler is still better than most, and I think the list of golfers who can contend at Royal Portrush starts with the three-time major winner.

"My main takeaway is I battled as hard as I did this week," Scheffler said. "I was really proud mentally of how I was over the course of four days. I did a lot of things out there that could really kind of break a week, and I never really got that one good break that kind of propels you. I'd hit it this far off, and seemingly every time I did, I was punished pretty severely for it."

Shane Lowry took home the Claret Jug the last time The Open was played in Northern Ireland in 2019, and I think he'll be among the favorites again. Lowry struggled mightily in his second straight major and missed the cut after posting 79-78.

Rory McIlroy will be looking for redemption after missing the cut at Royal Portrush five years ago. He still battled his driver a bit at Oakmont but went home with some momentum after posting a 3-under 67 on Sunday. I think he'll get his mind and swing in the right place before arriving in Northern Ireland.

"Look, if I can't get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don't know what can motivate me," McIlroy said. "Yeah, as I said, I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven't been there the last few weeks.

"But as I said, getting home and having a couple weeks off before that, hopefully feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, will get me in the right place again."

Uggetti: How about the defending champion making another run at it? With everyone's eyes on top of the leaderboard Sunday, Xander Schauffele quietly put together an under-par round to finish inside the top 12 at Oakmont.

Slowly but surely, Schauffele's game has been rounding back into major championship form after he missed some time early in the season with a rib injury. In his last seven starts, Schauffele has five top-15 finishes.

"I've never been hurt before. So I think it was all kind of new," Schauffele said this week. "I felt like I was playing at a pretty high level. Then I got hurt. My expectations of what I knew I could do to where I was were very different, and accepting that was tough. I think that was sort of the biggest wake-up call for me coming back."

It's fair to say Schauffele is nearly all the way back and just in time for the second major championship he won last season. The 31-year-old secured the Claret Jug last year at Troon with a marvelous Sunday performance that proved he could excel, not just on PGA Tour setups, but also on links courses with links conditions. Portrush will bring those two things to the stage in a month, and Schauffele will have the benefit of knowing he has won in that kind of environment before.

Besides Spaun, who were the biggest winners at Oakmont?

Schlabach: Viktor Hovland's swing has been a mess -- or at least he believed so -- for much of the season, but he managed to get in the mix and finished third at 2 over and in third place. Hovland's inner battle for perfection might preclude him from joining Scheffler, Schauffele and others as the truly best golfers in the world, but there's little debate that he's one of the most talented. Everything is there for him to win a couple of majors, at least.

"I keep progressing in the right direction, and to have a chance to win a major championship without my best stuff and not feeling very comfortable, it's super cool," Hovland said. "So I'm going to take a lot of positives with me this week."

Although Adam Scott would have liked a better finish than Sunday's 9-over 79, he was right there in the mix until conditions got bad on the second nine. I had believed Scott's chances of contending in majors were over since he is 44 years old. But this was the first time he's done it in quite a while, and he still might have something left in the tank to do it again.

Uggetti: I'll go back to MacIntyre here. The man from Oban looked comfortable in the chaotic conditions Sunday and played the back nine at Oakmont in a bogey-free 2-under to grab the clubhouse lead that nearly got him in a playoff with Spaun.

"I'm just a guy who believes," MacIntyre said. "Today was a day that I said to myself, 'Why not? Why not it be me today?'"

All week, the Scotsman putted lights out, ranking fourth in strokes gained: putting and, despite a round of 74 on Friday, kept himself in the tournament that he predicted would have an even par winner.

MacIntyre was almost right.

Once he was finished with his round and he could only watch as Spaun drained the 64-foot birdie to secure a 1-under finishing score and the victory, cameras caught MacIntyre in the scoring room giving Spaun a hearty clap and an earnest "Wow." It was a human moment that garnered a lot of praise and capped off a week MacIntyre will not soon forget.

"It feels great," MacIntyre said of being in contention. "It's what I've dreamed of as a kid, sitting back home watching all the majors. Yeah, it feels unbelievable."