The 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club has come to its brutal and brilliant conclusion, with J.J. Spaun etching their name into the sport’s most unforgiving chapter. This was not a celebration of beautiful golf. It was an exhibition of survival. Four days of relentless challenge, where every hole asked for everything and gave nothing in return.

Watching it unfold felt less like a golf tournament and more like a spiritual cousin to one of the world’s most punishing endurance races: the Barkley Marathons in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee. That ultramarathon, designed by Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, was built on the idea that success should be rare, even accidental. Each time a runner manages to finish, the course is made harder the next year. There is no ideal strategy, no steady rhythm. Only suffering, instinct, and a willingness to keep going when everything says stop.

Oakmont shares this DNA.

The Barkley Marathons, 2014 Documentary. A must watch.

The Fownes family, who built the course, were not trying to create beauty. They were trying to create discomfort. If a player found a solution to a hole one year, they might return to find a bunker in its path the next. Oakmont evolves constantly, its defenses shaped over time to meet the growing strength of modern professionals. Like the Barkley, it is designed not to be solved, but endured.

This year’s U.S. Open felt like a blindfolded trek through a forest with no trail markers, just instinct and grit to guide the way. There were no rhythm holes, no safe landings, no breathers. Balls spun off crowned greens, drives chased into bunkers like magnets, and lies buried themselves in the rough like secrets. Shane Lowry picked up his ball without marking it, a moment of confusion that summed up the mental toll. Adam Scott fought terrain more than opponents. And the weather played its part too, shifting momentum on a whim, rewarding some, betraying others. Oakmont was less a course, more a labyrinth and only one player found the way out.

Week in and week out, the PGA Tour is designed to showcase talent. It gives players the stage to create. Oakmont takes that stage away. It doesn’t ask who can play the best golf. It asks who can keep playing golf when the game has been stripped bare.

By Sunday evening, when the final putt dropped and the final breath was taken, there was no great crescendo. Just the quiet relief of completion. The winner did not conquer Oakmont. They simply survived it longer than everyone else.

This wasn’t just a U.S. Open. It was the Ultra Major. And Oakmont, like the Barkley, reminded us that the most profound tests in sport are not those that seek perfection, but those that make it impossible.

Congratulation J.J.

Happy Golfing