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Filipino American JJ Spaun Wins Golf’s US Open
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 16 Jun, 2025
JJ Spaun, who’s Filipino Grandfather passed down an appreciation for his culture, overcame a turbulent few years of his golf career to win his first major tournament on Saturday.
Last week, Filipino Americans won: an election for Mayor of San Antonio, the Tony Award for Lead Actor in a Musical, and the Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical. Yesterday, they added pro-golf’s US Open to their list of victories.
On Sunday, 35-year-old Filipino American JJ Spaun defeated Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre by just two strokes to secure his first major PGA tournament victory and win the 125th US Open at Oakland Country Club in California.
Spaun has been vocal about his Filipino heritage, which comes from his half-Filipino and half-Mexican mother Dollie’s side of the family. Spaun has described his late-grandfather Angel Rigor as “kind of the main Filipino person in our family.” Rigor, who's parents immigrated to California from the the city of Victoria in the Filipino province of Tormac, grew up speaking the Ilocano dialect of Tagalog.
JJ’s grandfather passed down an appreciation for Filipino food. Per JJ’s white father John Michael Spaun Sr, “We like Filipino food. Adobo, lumpia, pinakbet, deep-fried tilapia.” He also noted that the family has never visited the Philippines, but hopes to.
It was JJ’s Filipino mother Dollie who he credits with his initial interest in golf. She was herself an avid golfer, who even played up until she was eight months pregnant with JJ (with her doctor’s permission).
“People would always tell me that my son was going to be a golfer when he grew up," Dollie has said. And as a kid, JJ would tell her “Mom, I don’t want to watch cartoons. I want to watch the Golf Channel.”
Spaun, who grew up in Los Angeles, attended San Diego State University and walked onto the golf team. During his collegiate career, he was a three-time All American and the 2012 Conference player of the year. The first three years of his professional golf career were spent on the PGA Tour Canada where he broke the record for single-season earnings. After winning his first tournament in 2015, he was promoted to the US PGA Tour.
Spaun’s last few years on the Tour made yesterday’s victory look anything but inevitable. Were it not for the league’s decision to relax their rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, he would have been kicked off the tour years ago for poor performance.
Golf has long had a reputation for being predominantly White. Those stereotypes, however, were turned on their head when Tiger Woods, who is Thai and Black and was named after a Vietnamese friend of his father, established himself as one of the greatest golfers in the history of the sport. Today, golf boasts several star Asian players including Japanese Hideki Maysuyama, who won the Masters in 2021, South Korean and Australian Min Woo Lee, Korean American Michael Kim, and Indian American Akshay Batia.
It was JJ’s Filipino mother Dollie who he credits with his initial interest in golf. She was, herself, an avid golfer, who even played up until she was eight months pregnant with JJ (with her doctor’s permission)
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