Behind JJ Spaun’s breakthrough season and success on the PGA Tour is his wife, Melody Spaun (née Means), a grounding force in his life both on and off the course.
The couple met through mutual friends in 2015, though Spaun admits his profession initially failed to impress her. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m a pro golfer’, because I thought I was cool,” he recalled. “But she’s like, ‘I don’t even know. What does that mean? Like, does that mean you’re rich or something?’ I was like, ‘No’. And she’s like, ‘I don’t really care.'” He added that a mini-golf date was met with a similar reaction: “She’s like, ‘This is lame.'”
Despite her initial reservations, Melody began supporting Spaun at tournaments, starting with the 2015 Northern Trust Open. “She was kind of intimidated by everything,” Spaun said. “And I’m like, ‘This is the life you’re going to live, get used to it.’ But she does good now.” The couple married in a beachfront ceremony in July 2019 and now resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, with their two daughters, Emerson Lili (born in 2020) and Violet Windsor (born in 2023).
Adapting to the pressures and constant travel of the PGA Tour, Melody has become an integral part of her husband’s career, most notably by establishing what the couple calls the “five-hour rule.” Implemented after the birth of their first daughter, the rule limits Spaun’s practice sessions to five hours, a change he credits with creating a healthier balance between his career and family life.
“You get five hours,” Spaun explained. “You gotta be back by this time. Because sometimes I can get stuck out here for a long time. I don’t mess around and fraternize or socialize… Kind of just do my thing.”
The rule also comes with a degree of flexibility. “She said, ‘Well, yeah, if you start missing some cuts, we can adjust; we can add a couple hours there,'” he noted. “This is how our marriage doesn’t get too sideways. Happy wife, happy life.”
Melody and their children are a familiar sight at Spaun’s tournaments, celebrating victories from his first PGA Tour win at the 2022 Valero Texas Open to his stunning major championship triumph. Spaun emphasizes that this family presence provides a crucial buffer from the pressures of professional golf.
“When I go back home after the round, my kids are there, and it’s such a big distraction where I’m not having to dwell on anything or think too much, which is a good thing,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to have the kids around and be a dad. That kind of keeps your mind off golf and gets me in a calm, cool, collective mindset.”
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