Sepp Straka admitted that his nerves were running riot as he marched towards his third PGA Tour victory at the American Express Championship in Palm Springs, California.
The Austrian-born European Ryder Cup player has laid down a strong early season marker to European captain Luke Donald who was the other side of the world in Dubai, but despite starting the final round with a four-stroke lead thanks largely to back-to-back 64s on Friday and Saturday, it wasn’t quite a smooth stroll to success.
Birdies on the first, third and seventh holes helped keep clear daylight between himself and the nearest challengers with Justin Thomas emerging as the biggest danger thanks to five birdies in his opening nine holes.
When Straka rolled in another birdie putt on 13, his four-shot advantage remained but a nervy bogey-six on the 16th added tension to the air. Thankfully for the big Austrian, he regained his composure to card pars on 16 and 17 and had the luxury of being able to take a bogey on the par-4 18th and still run out a two-stroke winner as the chasing pack failed to gain any momentum.
“Nerves, just complete nerves,” Straka admitted when asked if his calm demeanour reflected how he was feeling inside. “Stomach in a knot, the whole nine. So, yeah, just really excited about the way I handed the pressure today.”
In each of Straka’s two previous PGA Tour victories, he was the hunter in the final round and had to chase down and overtake players, including Shane Lowry at the 2022 Honda Classic, and he revealed that it was a different story being the man the rest were looking to catch.
“Yeah, it’s a very different feeling, I would say, you just have nerves a lot earlier,” he said. “Those other ones, you play your way into contention and those nerves start kicking in. But, yeah, I love Kirby Smart’s quote about being the hunter and not the hunted regardless of where you are in the game, in the tournament. Yeah, I kind of felt that way, I was kind of just trying to stay aggressive to my spots, my targets were pretty conservative, but I was trying to make aggressive swings to it. Yeah, I did that really well today of the.”
For Thomas, whose runner-up finish marks his highest PGA Tour placing since winning the PGA Championship in 2022, it was a welcome return to form even if he failed to really build on his fast start.
“I played well,” he said. “I mean, I had a chance, it wasn’t obviously a great one on the back nine, but I was proud of myself, I did what I needed to do on the front nine today and at least be making some noise and kind of moving up the leaderboard. Obviously it was unfortunate to kind of stall there after 11, really, really played some great golf today, hit some really good shots, made some great putts and hit some great putts too that didn’t go in. No, it’s good, I was far from my best stuff this week, I feel like I managed everything really well and got it around well, only two bogeys all week, and, but, yeah, in a place like this you got to be pretty sharp all around, and I’ll just keep building.”
Justin Lower and Jason Day finished tied for third at -22, one stroke behind Thomas and three off Straka, with Patrick Cantlay and Charley Hoffman rounding out the top five a further two strokes back.
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