Sepp Straka survives late nerves to capture third PGA Tour win
Austrian Sepp Straka boosted his European Ryder Cup credentials with a dominant victory at The American Express on the PGA Tour.
S. Straka | -25 |
J. Thomas | -23 |
J. Lower | -22 |
J. Day | -22 |
P. Cantlay | -20 |
C. Hoffman | -20 |
C. Villegas | -19 |
B. Griffin | -19 |
M. Greyserman | -19 |
A. Smalley | -18 |
Sepp Straka survived a late hiccup to capture his third PGA Tour title at The American Express.
The big Austrian carded a final round of 70 to reach a 72-hole total of 25-under par and win by two strokes over Justin Thomas.
Straka slept on a 54-hole lead for the first time in his career and in truth was relatively untroubled on Sunday early despite pressure from Thomas.
The 31-year-old endured a sloppy finish, though, as he found trouble at the par-5 16th and also dropped a shot at the last.
Straka bailed out right with his second shot on the 16th and it was more than likely that he had William Mouw's disaster at the back of his mind.
Mouw made a nightmarish octuple-bogey 13 on Friday afternoon but laughed off what transpired with a mature response.
Straka took his medicine by being conservative with his greenside chip to walk off the green with a bogey and escaped the tricky par-3 17th with a par.
He held a two-shot lead on the final hole and made his second bogey of the week after finding a gnarly lie in the greenside bunker with his approach.
Straka splashed out of the sand and smashed his par putt four feet past the hole.
But he still had two for the win.
He told reporters his stomach was in knots for the entirety of the back nine.
"Just complete nerves," he said.
He added: "This golf course, you can't really let up, you still got to make really aggressive swings because you're one swing away from a double bogey.
"I think that was the biggest challenge today was keeping aggressive on my targets."
Straka is now projected to be back inside the top 20 of the OWGR.
Crucially, though, he has picked up a victory in a Ryder Cup year.
Straka secured one point for Team Europe when the matches were played in Rome in 2023.
Thomas is still searching for his first victory since the 2022 PGA Championship.
Elsewhere, former World No.1 Jason Day had a top-10 finish.
As did Patrick Cantlay.
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