A five-hour rule? This pro’s wife introduced him to the clever move

Melody Spaun will get golf. Though, perhaps at first, it was all a bit peculiar. 

“I was like, yeah, I’m a pro golfer. Because I thought I was cool,” her husband, J.J. Spaun, stated, recalling their first date. “But she’s like, ‘I don’t even know. What does that imply? Like, does that imply you’re like wealthy or one thing?’ I used to be like, no. And she’s like, I don’t actually care. And I used to be like, all proper. 

“And we went like mini-golfing or something, and she’s like, this is lame.”

Good stuff. Still, they received married, in 2019, they usually have a 2-year-old daughter, Emerson. This week, the gang’s all in Hawaii, at the Tournament of Champions, the place Spaun co-led after Thursday’s first spherical. And that brings us to J.J. Spaun’s five-hour rule. And Melody Spaun’s newfound understanding of golf. 

J.J., you see, can work on his sport. Or not. He can slack too. But with wife and daughter in tow this week, he was instructed by Melody he had 300 minutes at the Plantation Course at Kapalua. Five hours. Though, honestly, how rather more do you want typically?

“It was good,” he stated Thursday. “Maybe I should stick to it. Five hours allotment of like, OK, you get five hours. You got to be back by this time, because sometimes I can get like stuck out here for a long time.”

“That’s kind of high pressure, though?” a reporter requested. 

“Yeah, so it kind of makes me productive,” Spaun stated. “I don’t mess around and fraternize or socialize with everyone. Kind of just do my thing. Get it in there.”

The outcomes converse for themselves. On Thursday, he carded 9 birdies. And J.J. stated he and fam have had their time — “beach and like just being a dad, having fun, mai tais, chilling at the beach.” And that begged this query from a reporter:

“It worked today. Does she think the rule should be five hours going forward?”

“I’m like maybe five hours, if I know like my game is like really good,” he stated. “Which I felt assured the place I didn’t want to be looking or grinding on an excessive amount of stuff.

“So it’s going to be hard. She said, well, yeah, if you start missing some cuts, we can adjust; we can add a couple hours there. This is, these are the conversations I have. I’m not even joking. I mean, this is how, our marriage, we don’t, you know, it doesn’t get too sideways. Happy wife, happy life.”

Indeed. Notably, PGA Tour professionals and their wives’ data of the sport has been a preferred topic this week in press conferences. Scottie Scheffler dished that his wife, Meredith, knew “zero” about the sport once they met in highschool. Justin Thomas stated wife Jillian’s understanding was “very low.” Each participant had tales. 

“So her level of golf knowledge was very low,” Thomas stated Wednesday. “So she went to school with all my mates at Kentucky, and that’s how I met her. Whenever I might return house, I might go to my mates at UK, and he or she was finest mates with all my finest mates.

“So I met her and he or she tells a shaggy dog story of, earlier that yr was once I assume I had gained Malaysia [in 2015 and ’16] or one thing like that to the place all my mates, being the good mates that they’re, had the bar put the golf on. Because of the time change, it was 12 o’clock, 1 in the morning, the golf was on. She tells the story of, I used to be so confused why my mates wished to put golf on at the bar at like 12 or 1 o’clock. Like it made no sense. Like she didn’t actually ask, however simply was, in her head, was like, that’s actually bizarre. And then as soon as we met and we turned mates, she understood; OK, this is smart.

“And to the degree of her golf data, I used to be texting along with her in the present day and instructed her that the pro-am may be a bit bit longer as a result of it’s cart path solely. And she requested: What is cart path solely? So I had to clarify cart path solely to her.

“But it’s — she’s learning.”

And Scheffler’s?

“I remember specifically when we dated in high school I got an opportunity — I won the U.S. Junior in 2013,” stated Scheffler, who married Meredith in December of 2020. “And in 2014, I had the alternative to play in the Byron Nelson as a highschool scholar. And Meredith, like I used to be at her home at some point, we have been hanging out along with her dad or one thing, and the business got here on TV. And she was type of trying round, she was like, wait a minute, isn’t that subsequent weekend, isn’t that what you’re doing? And I used to be like, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. She’s like, wow, that’s cool. And I used to be like, OK.

“And she’s learned fast.”

What about Melody Spaun? On Thursday, J.J. was requested: “On a scale of 1 to 10, what would you give her now?”

“She’s a 10. She’s a 10. A 10,” Spaun stated. “Like as far as like accepting the lifestyle.”

“Does she know what TIO means?” a reporter joked, referring to the initials for short-term immovable obstruction.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Spaun stated, laughing. “No, but, yeah, she’s really big on me having a balance in my life. So it works.”

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his function, he’s accountable for enhancing, writing and growing tales throughout the golf area. And when he’s not writing about methods to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native might be taking part in the sport, hitting the ball left, proper and brief, and consuming a chilly beer to wash away his rating. You can attain out to him about any of those matters — his tales, his sport or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.