Given his fair complexion, Sepp Straka would never pass a Hollywood audition for the part of “tall dark stranger”. But there is no doubt the 30-year-old Austrian is, at least within the team room, the least known member of the European Ryder Cup side that will attempt to wrest the trophy from American hands later this month.

While much has been made of other Ryder Cup rookies such as Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Hojgaard since captain Luke Donald added Straka and five others to the six automatic qualifiers, the University of Georgia graduate — hence the southern twang — has gone pretty much under the radar. But, as he was at pains to confirm after completing an opening two-under 70 at Wentworth in the BMW PGA Championship, he definitely does not feel in any way neglected.

And there is certainly nothing approaching resentment from his teammates with regard to where Straka played most of his golf. This week marks just the 20th DP World Tour start in his professional career.

“I do spend the majority of my time on the PGA Tour,” Straka acknowledged. “But if the team wanted to have the best players, I am one of those. So there has never really been any issues. To make the team, you just have to make sure you’re one of the 12 best players. And I felt like I did that.”

Apart from anything else, Straka made his desire to be part of the biennial match known early in the qualifying process. In January, he made the epic trip from Hawaii to Abu Dhabi to be part of the Continental Europe team that would defeat their Great Britain & Ireland counterparts in the Hero Cup. Straka emerged from that victory with a 2-2-0 record that included a final day 5&4 victory in singles.

The following two weeks at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the Hero Dubai Desert Classic were less successful — Straka missed the cut in both. But he had made his intentions clear with regard to the Ryder Cup: he wanted in. Eventually anyway. Sitting in the plane halfway between departure and arrival in the UAE, a little doubt did creep in.

“Two days into the trip, I was thinking, why am I doing this?” he says. “But then when I got there it was a lot of fun. It was great. We don’t get to play that type of golf very much. Not in a team environment, playing foursomes and four-balls. Plus, I thought it was invaluable for me to get some people to know me. At that point I was I was kind of on the outskirts of the radar. But it was so early. Really, I was just trying to get to know some guys.”

If they didn’t know him then, they surely do now. And ever since Donald made his picks, no one’s come close to questioning the two-time PGA Tour winner’s claims for inclusion. Not with a victory at the John Deere Classic, a runner-up spot in the Open Championship and a T-7 finish at the PGA Championship on his recent résumé.

“Sepp gets along great with everyone,” says European assistant captain Nicolas Colsaerts. “He gels into the group really easily. And he’s a ball-striking machine. Who wouldn’t want to play with Sepp Straka? I know there will be a lot of guys putting their hands up to be paired with him.”

In that regard, it would seem logical and likely, as Colsearts hinted, that Straka will feature in both foursomes sessions, the “alternate shot” format a good fit with his consistency tee-to-green. Plus, back in his amateur days he represented his country in European Team Championships, both events featuring foursomes play.

“My game does seem to fit in foursomes,” Straka said. “I’ve always felt pretty comfortable in that format. We do like a little Ryder Cup style match in Birmingham with all the pros. And I’ve always felt at ease in foursomes there. It’s just a very comfortable environment for me.”

Straka’s ball-striking prowess makes him well-suited to compete in foursomes later this month at the Ryder Cup. Richard Heathcote

Helping Straka in that department is caddie Duane Bock, who switched from his long-time employer, Kevin Kisner, to join the Vienna native back in July. In preparation for the matches, the American-born Bock has already dispensed with the patriotic red-white-and-blue cover on his yardage book.

“It was a great move for me,” Straka said. “First it was just supposed to be temporary. But we quickly realized we had something going. He’s one of the best caddies out there and he’s really helped my game a lot.”

That trend will likely have to continue this week the DP World Tour’s flagship event. By mid-afternoon on a day made for golf, Straka’s 70 was six shots off the pace set by Denmark’s Marcus Helligkilde.

“I’m very happy with the way I hit the ball,” was Straka’s initial verdict. “And very happy with the way I played overall. But my chipping was terrible today. I don’t know that I got a single ball up and down. So I left a lot out there.”

Still, no matter. Whatever happens, this week and next and especially the week after that, Straka is clearly going to have bigger things on his mind.

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Sepp Straka stood in the 18th fairway at TPC Deere Run Sunday with an 8-iron in his hands, confidence coursing through his veins and a second PGA Tour victory in his sights. That he also had a chance to add his name to the list of tour players to break 60 was a mere secondary consideration.

“It popped in my mind, for sure, yeah, but I wasn’t going to change my game plan or strategy for the 59,” the 30-year-old native of Austria said. “The goal was still to keep the same game plan and try to finish and win a golf tournament. As fun as the 59 would be, I think winning the golf tournament is always more fun.”

Good thing he felt that way. Straka proceeded to rinse the shot, pulling his approach from 181 yards into the water left of the green. It cost him a double bogey on the par-4 home hole and marred what had been a sensational round, one of the finest this season. But sometimes a round qualifies as great by being good enough, and that’s what Straka submitted by carding a nine-under 62 and posting a two-stroke victory in the John Deere Classic.

For 17 holes, Straka absolutely strafed defenceless TPC Deere Run with nine birdies and an eagle, but after rallying from four strokes back to begin the final round to building a five-stroke lead, he left the door open with a mistake out of character with the quality of golf he had been putting on display on a temperate day in Silvis, Ill.

A birdie on the final hole—or on any of the three previous holes after getting to 11 under par—would have given Straka the 13th sub-60 score in tour history. He also would have become the third player, after David Duval and Stuart Appleby, to win with a final-round 59.

Instead, after the dyspeptic conclusion, he had to stew for more than an hour, hoping his 21-under 263 total would hold up. Third-round leader Brendan Todd climbed within a stroke, but he couldn’t catch Straka and Straka found himself $1.332 million richer and a step closer, perhaps, to making Luke Donald’s European Ryder Cup team.

“Hopefully, I can make a push for that [the Ryder Cup],” said Straka, who was born in Vienna but moved with his family to Georgia when he was 14 and attended the University of Georgia.

Straka, who rose to 27th in the world, is the second tour winner this season to double bogey the final hole, following Emiliano Grillo at the Charles Schwab Challenge. He is the first player since David Frost in 1992 to win the event with a round over par. Straka began the week with a two-over 73 and sat in 133rd place before rallying with 63 and 65 to climb into contention.

He credited short-game instructor Tim Yelverton with a putting tip that turned around his fortunes. Yelverton texted him Thursday after that first round and told Straka that the toe of his putter was sticking up. Straka adjusted his hands a little higher to flatten the clubhead.

Straka led the field in strokes gained/putting on Sunday and was fourth for the week at 6.731. He also was tops in birdies with 26.

“It was crazy because you don’t want to think about it too much because you don’t want to lose the feeling,” he said of being in a zone of sorts. “I was hitting the ball really well. I don’t think the ball-striking was as out of this world as the putting. The putting was just phenomenal.”

The final round began with 12 players within three shots of Todd’s lead. Straka wasn’t one of them. But by the sixth hole, when he tapped in a two-footer for birdie, he had the lead alone at 17 under, and he never trailed thereafter. He went out in seven-under 28, the third 28 posted on the front nine at TPC Deere Run. Then he added four birdies in a row starting with a seven-footer at the 11th to reach 11 under par.

His best chance to get to 12 under came at the par-5 17th hole, but he pulled a nine-foot birdie attempt. Then came Sepp’s misstep at 18, which for a while looked like it could cost him the tournament.

“It was not a good shot,” he said of his final approach. “Wind was off the right. I was just trying to go middle of the green and let it feed down to the left. Pulled it early. And then the wind drags it over to the water. It’s unfortunate. It was the first bad shot I hit today, I think, so I’ll give myself a little bit of slack there.”

Todd provided breathing room that he couldn’t afford to surrender when he three-putted the par-4 16th hole from 29 feet to drop two behind. The first putt had too much steam and raced six feet by.

“I just forgot. I’ve had that putt before and ran it passed. It’s just faster than it looks,” he said. “I was kind of line-locked knowing that I probably needed a birdie or two coming in, and so I just forgot how fast it was.”

More noticeable was just how fast Straka, a fellow Bulldog, raced by him.

“On 8 or 9 I saw that Sepp had gotten to 22 or 23 under, which was obviously amazing,” said Todd, who closed with a 68 and tied for second with Alex Smalley at 265. “I was pretty amazed, but I did say in my interview yesterday, there’s been a 59 [by Paul Goydos in 2010]. Anybody could have gone out there and shot a great round today, and he did it.”

Straka did a lot of things with that one round. He set the tournament record for low final round by a winner, eclipsing Payne Stewart’s mark of 63 in the 1982 event at Oakwood CC in Coal Valley, Ill., and the tournament record for largest comeback after 18 holes when he trailed Jonas Blixt by 11 shots. He tied what is believed to be a tour record with the lowest round that includes a double bogey, joining four others, including Harry Higgs earlier this year at The American Express.

Finally, no player since 1983 had ever been lower on the leaderboard in a tour event after one round. Ian Poulter was 123rd after 18 holes before winning the 2018 Houston Open.

“Any time you play a tournament, you get in contention, you find out something new. That experience is invaluable,” Straka said. “So just knowing that I was in 130-something place after the first round and ended up winning, you just can’t ever really count yourself out because you could get hot any moment.”

And stay hot all the way to the podium.

The post Sepp Straka’s wild Sunday rally falls short of 59, but not of winning the John Deere Classic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.—What can you say about Sunday at the Honda Classic except that it was our latest lesson in the wild unpredictability of professional golf? What looked like a serene runaway in the Florida sunshine around 2 p.m. on Sunday turned into a dark, rain-soaked melee in which the palm trees bent to the wind, the umbrellas faltered in the onslaught, and a timely rain propelled 28-year-old Sepp Straka to his first PGA Tour win, and the first tour triumph ever for an Austrian golfer.

“It’s hard to take, to be honest,” runner-up Shane Lowry said afterwards. “It felt like I got the tournament stolen from me … that’s as bad a break as I’ve ever gotten.”

Lowry made sure to congratulate Straka and gave him a fist bump in the loud scoring area when his interviews were done, so these were not sour grapes. He was only engaging in a favourite pastime of golfers the world over: lamenting the vagaries of the universe. And he wasn’t wrong.

Straka, who birdied three of the final five holes in shooting four-under 66 to beat Lowry (67) by one, may have been the beneficiary of the meteorological whims, but nobody can say he didn’t seize the moment.

Daniel Berger went into the fourth round with a look of invincibility, holding a five-shot lead (tied for the largest ever in this famously tight tournament), and had played such steady, repetitive, error-free golf that it seemed impossible for anyone to catch him. And in fact, that was right—nobody caught him. Instead, he succumbed to the gravity of the field, and within five holes, his lead was gone. Berger, who shot 74, gamely faced the media in the aftermath of his collapse, but he was not in the mood for philosophy.

“Didn’t play well, so I didn’t win the golf tournament,” he said. “I don’t think I made a single putt today. I don’t know what happened. Just didn’t feel good over the putter today.”

Mike Ehrmann
Shane Lowry plays his shot from the 16th tee during the final round of the Honda Classic.

The stats bore him out. In a field of 73 players, Berger ranked 73rd in strokes gained/putting, with an abysmal -3.807 number. The trouble started early, with a double bogey on the par-5 third and two more bogeys on 5 and 6.

At that point, a story began to emerge, and the story was about Lowry as predator and Berger as prey. Lowry had fought his way into the final group with a field-best 67 on Saturday, and he said he simply wanted to put some pressure on Berger from the start. He got his wish on the first, burying a 15-foot birdie, and again on the fourth, when a laser-like approach left him a gimme birdie. Before long, Lowry held the lead, and though Berger tied him before the turn, a 13-foot birdie for Lowry on 11 followed by a Berger three-putt on 12 put him in front of his playing partner for good.

At that point, Straka was not yet in the discussion. He started out at six under, just like Lowry, but a missed two-footer on the first hole cost him a shot, and left him, in his own words, “pissed off.” He responded with two straight birdies, but a back-and-forth front nine kept him well behind the leaders, and by the time he reached the 14th hole, he sat at seven under. That’s when the charge began, and the putts began to drop: 10 feet for birdie on 14, and 18 feet for birdie on 16.

Coming to the final hole, the famous par-5 with the car floating on the water, he was tied for the lead. It was his good fortune that he managed to get off his drive—a 334-yard beauty down the right side of the fairway—just before the rains fell. The skies opened as he marched down the fairway, and his playing partner, Kurt Kitayama, seemed loath to hit his own second shot. Barring any lightning, though, there was no choice. Both players reached the green in two, and when Straka’s 47-foot eagle putt stopped nine inches from the hole, he had the critical stroke he needed. With only Lowry and Berger threatening, he took shelter from the rain at 10 under.

His fortune in staying dry on the 18th tee wasn’t shared by Lowry and Berger, who stepped up amid a downpour. Berger, at eight-under, managed to keep his drive in the fairway, but Lowry, at nine-under and needing a birdie, flew his drive into the left through. Berger was forced to take dead aim from 253 yards, sent his 3-wood into the water, and Lowry hit a weak third shot to 43 feet and missed the birdie putt. Straka’s victory was secure, and along with the security of tour status, he also locked down his first-ever Masters berth.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s a lifelong dream of mine just to be heading to Augusta in a month or so. It’s still surreal.”

With his mother in the audience, Straka fielded questions about his background. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and sounds fully American despite spending the first 14 years of his life in Austria. His father is Austrian (he watched the final round from home, and got a phone call from his son moments after the finish), and his American mother now lives in Valdosta, Ga. As Golf Digest’s Max Adler wrote in 2019, the parents met when his mother—who first traveled to Austria with a boyfriend, and stayed on after the relationship failed—sold a golf glove to her eventual husband in an Austrian pro shop. Sepp, whose given first name is Josef, considers himself something more than a blend.

“I have a good friend in Austria, Clemens,” he said. “I used to always say that I was 50-50—50 percent Austrian, 50 percent American. He was, like, ‘No, you’re 100 percent Austrian and 100 percent American,’ which is very accurate. I feel a connection to both countries and it’s definitely split.”

Straka represented Austria in last summer’s Olympics in Japan, opening with a 63 to take the lead before eventually tying for 10th.

As a child, his loyalties were initially divided between soccer and golf, and when asked about the veracity of a story that he chose golf simply because there was less moving around, he laughed.

“Well, I was a goalie so there wasn’t that much going on anyways,” he said. “But, yeah, my brother and I kind of made that move together. We did a summer camp, and he really decided that we were going to start playing a little more golf. That’s kind of how we got into it.”

The brother is his twin Sam, who was considered the more promising prospect when they were young, and the camp was at Fontana Golf Club in a small town south of Vienna called Oberwaltersdorf. That experience changed everything and led back to Valdosta, and Athens (the one in Georgia), and finally here to Palm Beach Gardens, where the welcome rain fell and Straka soared.

The post Sepp Straka wins a suddenly exciting Honda Classic with late, rainy charge appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Three players have withdrawn from the Valspar Championship due to positive COVID-19 tests, the PGA Tour announced.

Will Gordon and Brice Garnett registered positive tests on Monday, with Sepp Straka pulling out of the tournament for the same reason Tuesday morning. Due to the CDC guidelines, all must now enter self-isolation.

Garnett was coming off a strong performance at the Zurich Classic, teaming with Scott Stallings to finish T-11 at TPC Louisiana last week. The 37-year-old also posted top 10s at the Puerto Rico Open and Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. He entered the week 113th in the FedEx Cup. After his WD, Garnett posted an offer to fans on Twitter. “I don’t get to play this week,” Garnett wrote, “but I do have 2 Ticketmaster tickets available each day if anyone is in the Tampa area and wanting to watch some golf.”

Gordon, who earned full status on the tour this season through 11 starts via exemptions, qualifiers and special temporary membership last campaign, the WD continues a rough 2021. The Vanderbilt product has made 12 of 20 cuts but produced a lone top 25 finish. Ranking 152nd in strokes gained and 148th in the FedEx Cup, Gordon has some work to do over the second half of the season to keep his card for 2021.

Straka has been enjoying a quietly consistent campaign, making the cut in 15 of 20 starts this season. Ranking 88th in the FedEx Cup, Straka posted a T-29 finish last week with Josh Teeter at the Zurich.

In a memo released to players last week, the PGA Tour is changing its testing policy, as well as updating its health and safety protocols, for those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The biggest change involves no more routine testing for those who have been fully vaccinated, stated as 14 days since the last vaccine shot was administered. For those who are not vaccinated, testing will remain a condition of participation. However, on-site testing operations will discontinue at the end of June. Once those operations stop, non-vaccinated players will be required to show proof of a negative test at their own expense 72 hours before tournament arrival. This will be required not only for players but caddies, along with others inside the tour’s bubble.

Taking the place of Gordon, Garnett, and Straka in the field are Tim Wilkinson, J.J. Spaun, and Nelson Ledesma. The Valspar Championship begins Thursday at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course. Cancelled due to the pandemic last spring, 2019 winner Paul Casey is the defending champ.

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