J.J. Spaun had a dream season in 2025. But for the first few months of his follow-up campaign, things looked more like a nightmare.

Through seven starts entering this week, Spaun had made just three cuts, with a T24 finish standing as his high-water mark. His strokes-gained metrics had declined across the board, and his putting was so poor that he ranked among the 10 worst on Tour.

At TPC San Antonio, none of that mattered.

Spaun, playing this week as a final tune-up before the Masters, fired a final-round 67 to win the Valero Texas Open by one shot over Matt Wallace, Michael Kim and Robert MacIntyre. The victory marked Spaun’s second at the Texas Open (he also won in 2022) and the third of his PGA Tour career.

“I haven’t been in the form I wanted based on last season,” Spaun said. “It means a lot to come back and win here at a place that’s been so good to me.”

Returning to a course filled with positive memories proved to be the spark he needed. At the Players, Spaun recorded his best finish of the season to that point with a T24. He missed the cut the following week at the Valspar, but a return to the familiar setting of the Texas Hill Country seemed to bring something out of him.

After opening with back-to-back rounds of 69, Spaun surged over the weekend in soggy conditions. With play suspended midway through his third round on Saturday, he returned early Sunday morning to complete a six-under 66, putting himself firmly in contention. When the final round began, he kept the momentum rolling, carding four birdies and an eagle en route to a five-under 67 to claim the clubhouse lead. When none of the contenders on the course could track him down, the burden of his nightmare start had finally been lifted.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself at the start of the year, and a lot of expectations,” Spaun said. “It’s the complete opposite of the mantra I had all year last year that really helped me, so I tried to get back to that. Went into the last few weeks starting at The Players just trying to be freed up and put less pressure on myself. It’s been trying, but sticking to that mantra has really helped me.”

With the win, Spaun earns a custom pair of cowboy boots and a $1.76 million paycheck. More importantly, he heads to Augusta for the Masters in his best form of the season — and you can’t put a price tag on that.

Really, can you blame J.J. Spaun? Probably not due to the special place in his heart this particular piece of equipment might hold.

At the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the 2025 U.S. Open champ was asked if the USGA — the organization that runs the U.S. Open — ever asked him for a meaningful club from his victory to keep for its archives.

Yes, Spaun said — but he didn’t let them have it.

“I said, ‘Unfortunately, I can’t,’” Spaun said. “That thing is not ready to be retired, especially after that putt.”

That putt, you might remember, is the 64-footer he used to win the 125th U.S. Open in walk-off fashion at Oakmont Country Club last June.

“Viktor [Hovland], we kind of got a good line, a good read on the speed,” Spaun said after his win at Oakmont, when he drained the birdie try to secure his first major title. “I was more focused on how hard he was hitting it. I kind of knew the line already, but it looked like he gave it a pretty good whack because it started raining there for the last 10, 15 minutes. I just tried to pick my line and put a good stroke on it. I knew it was going to be a little slow. About 8 feet out, I kind of went up to the high side to see if it had a chance of going in, and it was like going right in. I was just in shock, disbelief that it went in and it was over. Yeah, here we are.”

So you can understand why Spaun didn’t want to part with his L.A.B. Golf DF3. So, he went with the next-best thing.

“The second probably most valuable club, I think, was my driver, and I actually had switched to a more new head, meaning, like, it was probably getting close to its limit,” Spaun said Wednesday. “It ended up being kind of unusable anyway, so I donated that, and I think they were pretty happy.”

Just last week we found out Rory McIlroy lost one of his important clubs via donation as well. McIlroy’s most memorable shot from his 2025 Masters win was the 7-iron he hit into the par-5 15th green on Sunday, setting up an easy two-putt birdie.

“I didn’t realize this, but I flew back the day after on the Monday and I basically didn’t see my golf clubs since like post the playoff, and I saw that my 7-iron was missing,” McIlroy said last week at Pebble Beach. “I was like, that’s a pretty important club. Sean [O’Flaherty, my business manager] had already given it to the club, he just didn’t tell me. That’s fine, I’ll get a new 7-iron. If there was one I was going to give the club, it was probably going to be that one.”