SAN ANTONIO — Through two rounds at the Valero Texas Open, no one was talking much about J.J. Spaun.

The talk at TPC San Antonio was about whether early leaders Robert MacIntyre and Ludvig Åberg could be caught. Then it was about the blaring emergency alarm that evacuated the resort hotel Friday at midnight. Then it was about the relentless rain that fell for four hours Saturday, suspending play. When Sunday dawned, as raw and cold as a wintry morning in South Texas, it was about the 30-degree swing in temperature.

Spaun quietly let his clubs say what needed to be said. His 5-under 67 was quite enough.

He pushed up the leaderboard with birdies at Nos. 2, 10, 14 and 16. He eagled the short and vulnerable par-4 17th to reach 17 under par — a stroke ahead of Matt Wallace, who had finished more than an hour before with a 68.

A par on the last hole eliminated the Englishman and meant Spaun, the 2022 champion of the Valero Texas Open, would get to wait to see if anyone would match him.

No one could.

Not Åberg, who stalled after two early birdies. Not a surging Andrew Putnam, undone by a costly three-putt on the par-3 16th.

Not Michael Kim, who needed a finishing birdie he did not get. And not MacIntyre, who eagled the 17th but failed to make a tying birdie from a patch of mud on the par-5 18th.

When all of the talk was over, Spaun, 35, had his third win in 252 starts on the PGA TOUR. It was a deliberate, gutsy and gritty performance on an uncomfortable day at an already rugged The Oaks Course. He was seven shots behind with nine holes to play when — exactly as he did last summer at the U.S. Open — Spaun repelled MacIntyre, who finished second to Spaun at Oakmont Country Club, to win.

“My strategy was not to spiral,” Spaun said.

With his win, Spaun secured 500 FedExCup points and rose 91 spots in the rankings to 24th.

He walked 26 holes Sunday, finishing his third round first. He kept his head down, tried to hit the safest shots, never did more than he had to and, in the end, accepted what would come. It helped that he was back on the golf course where he won for the first time in 2022.

It took him 147 starts to win on TOUR. Spaun thought good things were about to happen after his 2022 victory here. He made a lot of cuts in 2023 but never got closer than one top five. He had an uneven season in 2024: 16 made cuts in 28 starts, four finishes inside the top 10 and six in the top 25. The 2025 season started better. He tied for third at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He lost in a playoff at THE PLAYERS Championship. But no wins.

Three months later, he won the U.S. Open.

That championship changed so much for Spaun. It changed his expectations. It changed his belief system. It wasn’t always for the best, but he learned a lot along the way.

This year had been frustrating. Seven starts, four missed cuts. He hadn’t been near a lead until the weekend in San Antonio.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself this year to start the year,” Spaun said. “And a lot of expectations.”

He said he changed his thinking before THE PLAYERS. He tried to be freer and less consumed with ideas of how he should play. He just played.

“It’s been trying, but sticking to that mantra really helped me,” Spaun said.

He saw the 2026 season as another new start, another reset. He tried to stop picturing himself as the guy who “needs to play well and needs to contend,” as the reigning U.S. Open champion who hits the perfect shot every time. He became, in a way, the J.J. Spaun before 2022 — happy to play golf for a living, fortunate to travel with his family, lucky to be exempt, eager for the next chance to execute under pressure.

Spaun tied for 24th at TPC Sawgrass. It wasn’t a win. But it was a good week.

“I think at THE PLAYERS I did a really good job of kind of accepting where my game was and just knowing, like, you don’t have to have you’re A game to win,” he said.

“That’s kind of what I did this week,” Spaun continued. “I didn’t have my A game, but I just accepted what I was able to use this week. Went out there and just tried to get the ball in the hole. And whatever outcome I had, whether it was a shot or a hole, I just accepted it and moved on.”