‘You deserve to be on this team’: Veteran US players get rookies like J.J. Spaun ready for Ryder Cup

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (AP) — It was the wisdom U.S. Ryder Cup rookie J.J. Spaun needed, even after winning a major, climbing to No. 6 in the world and automatically qualifying for the team.

Justin Thomas, who’s played in more Ryder Cups than anyone on this American squad, told the U.S. Open winner: “You earned your spot on this team. Don’t feel like this is a handout or a pick. You have a major that a lot of us are very jealous of, and you deserve to be on this team.”

“I think hearing that has helped me feel like I fit in more as a core player than a rookie who’s just trying to make some sort of impact,” Spaun, 35, said Tuesday at Bethpage Black. “I think that’s huge for my confidence.”

A year removed from being in danger of losing his PGA Tour card until rallying to finish at No. 98 in the FedEx Cup, Spaun might be the truest rookie of the U.S. team’s four first-timers. While the others have teed it up in the Presidents Cup, he’s never played in an international team competition as a pro.

The rookies — Spaun, Ben Griffin, Russell Henley and Cameron Young — are bringing fresh energy and a clean slate to a squad that’s whiplashed between the joy of winning the Ryder Cup at home at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin in 2021 to the heartache of losing to Europe in Rome in 2023.

Five returning U.S. players — world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Patrick Cantlay, plus two-time major champions Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Thomas — were there for the highs and lows of 2021 and 2023. Now, under first-time captain Keegan Bradley, they’re counted on to bring the new guys up to speed as the U.S. fights to retake the Ryder Cup in front of a what’s sure to be a raucous New York crowd.

Europe has just one Ryder Cup rookie, Denmark’s Rasmus Højgaard. He doesn’t need to go far to get a sense of what it’s like. His twin brother Nicolai played in 2023.

“A lot of these guys have played multiple Ryder Cups,” Spaun said. “(I’m) just trying to pick their brains. It’s a new arena for me, first national team appearance pretty much ever in my career. I just want to know how they feel, just so I can kind of get an estimation of how I’ll most likely feel.”

Schauffele, off the last five weeks for the birth of his son, said Spaun asked him on Monday “how I felt year to year playing in these, and I was happy to tell him.”

“I’m as nervous as anybody when I get to that first tee. I’m as nervous as anyone when I need to hole a putt,” Schauffele said. “But I just told him that there’s nothing more rewarding than to be at home and to make a putt to win a hole or to even tie a hole if you’re in a bad spot and get these fans going and get them going quickly.”

Bradley, who at 39 remains a top-tier PGA Tour player and flirted with being a playing captain, said he’s proud of his veteran players for rallying around the rookies.

“What’s really unique about this team is they all really take care of each other,” Bradley said. “J.J. Spaun is the U.S. Open champion and he’s willing to go to his peers and ask for advice how to go about this, and these veteran players are always open to helping.”

“It makes my job a lot easier when our veteran players are so open to help,” Bradley added, recalling veterans Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods helping him when he played in Ryder Cups in 2012 and 2014. “I think when you come into these team events you really need to rely on those older players.”

But, with this year’s team, age doesn’t always equal experience. Spaun and Henley, 36, are two of the older U.S. players while Thomas, 32, is making his fourth Ryder Cup appearance after debuting in 2018.

Asked about his leadership role, Thomas shied away from the “veteran” label, saying he associates that with older players “and I’m just not quite ready for that yet.” But, he conceded, “It’s coming at me head on. It’s just the reality.”

“I know that I’m one of the leaders on the team,” Thomas said. “But I don’t think there’s necessarily one person on the team the last handful or couple times I’ve been on that I’m like, ‘This is the person that when in doubt, you’re looking at.’”

Spaun, a Californian who sometimes posts social media videos of his other passion, skateboarding, said he’d watch the Ryder Cup as a kid but never thought or even dreamed that he’d be on the team.

“I think that kind of stems back to self-belief issues and knowing my ceiling, what it could be. I just always took one step at a time,” Spaun said.

He struggled for most of eight full PGA Tour seasons before changing his game and his mindset with help from his daughter, whose incessant playing of the ear worm “Let it Go” from the movie “Frozen” drilled a new mantra into his head.

“Definitely more self-belief,” Spaun said, obliging reporters by singing a few notes of the Disney hit. “I think kind of taking a lot of pressure off myself as far as trying to achieve certain things or putting limitations on myself. I just tried to let go as much as possible.”

After a season of big moments — pushing Rory McIlroy to a playoff at The Players championship in March, draining a 65-foot putt to take the U.S. Open and fighting Europe’s Justin Rose to sudden death in a FedEx Cup playoff event — Spaun is ready for the Ryder Cup stage.

The biggest preparation is “knowing that I have done it and I can do it. That’s kind of the mindset I’ve got to go in with this week,” he said.

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