Spaun Wins the Day! Winners & Losers from Sunday at the U.S. Open

You ever play golf in a car wash? No? Well, that’s kind of what the final round of the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont felt like. Sloppy.  After a mostly picture-perfect week of slow-burn drama, Sunday turned into an episode of Golf Gone Wild: Weather Delay Edition.

With a soggy, storm-drenched course and a leaderboard littered with stars and journeymen, chaos was inevitable. And amid the mayhem, Sam Burns and Adam Scott—two players with very different resumes but the same goal—saw their major hopes unravel in real-time.

Burns entered Sunday with the lead, trying to win his first major. Scott, just one shot back and a month away from turning 45, was hoping to become the second-oldest U.S. Open champ in history. On paper, it was the perfect matchup: rising star vs. elder statesman. Reality? Not so poetic.

Everyone seemed to struggle early on Sunday in the sun, especially the players teeing it up in primetime. Burns and Scott maintained their top 2 positions on the leaderboard through the 7th hole, then came the rain. And oh, did it rain.  

Cue thunder. Enter rain. Exit control of anything.

Play was suspended for more than 90 minutes, and when players came back out, Oakmont had changed. It wasn’t a golf course anymore—it was a marsh with flagsticks and the thickest cabbage (aka the rough!) on earth.

“The conditions were extremely difficult,” Burns said afterward. That’s golfer-speak for “What in the actual hell was that?”

From the moment play resumed, things got slippery—literally and figuratively. Burns couldn’t catch a break. On the 15th hole, tied for the lead and standing over his second shot, his ball landed in what can only be described as a muddy kiddie pool. He asked for relief. Denied. Asked again. Still denied. So he hit a 5-iron from 205 yards and created a geyser. The ball flared left, and a double bogey sealed his fate. (NOTE: Someday, when the USGA updates the standing water rule using common sense, it will be renamed the “Sam Burns Got Shafted on National TV” Rule.)

“It’s just water splashing every single time,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s not up to me. It’s up to the rules official. That’s kind of that.”

Burns played the final 11 holes in 6 over. His 78 dropped him to T-7. Not exactly the storybook finish he had in mind.

Adam Scott didn’t fare much better. He was already struggling before the delay, but afterward? Woof. One birdie, nine bogeys, and a slow-motion freefall to a 79.

“It was just so sloppy the rest of the way,” Scott said. “We must have looked horrible, both of us playing like that.”

Spoiler: they did. But it wasn’t their fault.

“It was borderline unplayable,” Scott admitted. “Like the shot I hit on [No.] 11, it’s bizarre. I just don’t know. It was like an aquaplane on the ground.”

Despite it all, Scott didn’t blame anyone. He shrugged it off as part of the challenge, even though he sympathized with Burns’ mud-soaked misery on 15. He even considered asking for relief on a similar lie but thought better of it. Golf, after all, has rules—some of which make zero sense when you’re standing ankle-deep in casual/standing water on a major championship Sunday.

While stars Burns and Scott flailed around in Oakmont’s post-storm muck, J.J. Spaun caught fire. He rolled in putts from Pittsburgh to Augusta—including a 64-foot dagger on 18—and somehow walked away with the U.S. Open trophy and $4,300,000. Burns ended up pocketing $614k, and Scott, $348k. The rain delay, the pressure, and the nervy final 11 holes cost Burns and Scott millions of dollars. Golf is a difficult game, even in perfect conditions on a benign course. Oakmont will never cower, even to the best golfers in the world on a perfect day.

Winners & Losers from Sunday at Oakmont:

Winners: Rory and Jon Rahm. They both shot Sunday best 3-under 67s. Neither was in contention down the stretch, even Rahm, who finished up T-7. Nonetheless, 67 at Oakmont, especially for Rahm, who did play a handful of holes after the rain delay, was an incredible score. Rory collected a T-19 for his troubles.

Winner: Spaun. Did he hit the best putt in golf history last night to win the U.S. Open?

Losers: The final pairing. Burns and Scott handled the pressure and conditions after the rain delay like tour rookies. They’ll need a few therapy sessions to snap back.

Winner: Robert MacInytre. He played his final 12 holes in 3-under, posting a 2-under 68, finishing up solo 2nd. He just locked up his spot on the International Ryder Cup squad.  

Loser: Wyndham Clark. Loser. He didn’t even play this weekend. Good riddance. He broke a few lockers in the fabled Oakmont clubhouse on Friday after missing the cut by one. If the PGA TOUR or the USGA had a spine, they’d bench him, or at the very least, fine him and send him back to Oakmont to fill divots.

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