Sepp Straka solidifies spot among TOUR elite with win at Truist Championship

FLOURTOWN, Penn. – Sepp Straka wasn’t even the most heavily-recruited member of his household growing up. It was Chris Haack’s interest in Sepp’s twin, Sam, that led the pair of solidly built, Valdosta-via-Austria brothers to Athens, Georgia, to play for the Bulldogs. And once there, Sepp had to sit out a year and redshirt because he was struggling so badly with the chipping yips.

And yet, after all that, Sepp Straka is now firmly ensconced among the game’s elite. After his victory Sunday at the Truist Championship, Straka can count himself among the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking and behind only Rory McIlroy in the FedExCup standings. Straka, 32, and McIlroy are the only two players with multiple victories this season, as well.

“Regardless of where I was, I just kept trying to improve my golf game and hoped that at the end of it, it would be good enough to play out here,” Straka said.

It is. His success is a testament to persistence, hard work and a willingness to change. He describes himself as a “rough around the edges” junior golfer, but one who kept getting better (excluding the brief battle with the yips). That continual improvement has been a constant throughout his career.

Just three years ago, he was ranked outside the top 150 in the world when he picked up his first PGA TOUR win. He had two wins in his first 168 starts on the PGA TOUR but has now doubled his win total in the span of 12 events. A victory in the Truist Championship, the sixth Signature Event of the season, ranks as the biggest of the bunch. He also won The American Express in his third start of this year.

Straka collected his most recent win by conquering a classic Philadelphia Cricket Club design where players were challenged with disparate weather in each of the first three days. Perfect conditions for the first round allowed players armed with modern equipment to attack a defenseless design that opened more than a century ago. Straka’s 63 that day left him two shots off the lead. But rain followed on Friday, and then high winds made the sloping greens crispy and required the utmost care on putts.

Straka was the best of the bunch, winning by two shots over major champions Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. They were the only players to finish fewer than four shots back of Straka, who finished at 16-under 264 (63-67-66-68).

It wasn’t easy, however. After Straka lost the lead with consecutive bogeys on 10 and 11, he was bogey-free the rest of the way.

“After (the bogeys on 10 and 11), I just told myself just to keep at it, keep just trying to execute each golf shot for what it is,” Straka said. “Fortunately, that was good enough.”

Three pars over the course’s trying trio of closing holes were the difference. Each of those holes played over par on the final day, and they represented three of the four hardest holes for the week. While Straka parred them all, Lowry closed with bogeys on Nos. 16 and 18.

The former Ryder Cup partners started the final round tied at 14-under par, three shots ahead of their nearest pursuers. Lowry quickly pulled ahead by making a 13-foot birdie putt on the opening hole, though. They were tied again after Straka holed a 20-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifth.

He bogeyed the next hole, but then birdied the final two holes of the front nine to take a two-shot lead over Lowry. Justin Thomas was three back.

After Straka’s bogeys on the back nine’s opening two holes, he and Lowry matched pars on Nos. 12-14 and both birdied the par-5 15th. But Lowry missed a 6-foot par putt on 16 after pulling his tee shot left of the green. Playing the final hole with a one-shot lead, Straka hit his approach shot from a fairway bunker to 32 feet. His birdie putt ran 4 feet past, but the pressure was off after Lowry missed his 21-foot birdie putt and the 6-foot comebacker for par.

Once known as a volatile player whose next score was harder to predict than the weather this week, Straka has transformed himself into one of this season’s most consistent players. He missed at least a dozen cuts in each of his first four seasons but also collected enough high finishes to keep his card each year.

It’s a far cry from the spring of 2022. Straka was two months from his 29th birthday – and ranked 176th in the world – when he won his first PGA TOUR title at the 2022 Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches. His first win came in his 95th PGA TOUR start – and after two seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour. He started his pro career on PGA TOUR Canada in 2016, making just one cut in six starts that year.

He is now on pace for his fourth consecutive appearance at the TOUR Championship.

He won his second title at the 2023 John Deere Classic, making enough birdies in the final round that he still shot 62 and won by two despite a final-hole double. He finished second at that year’s Open Championship, as well, and was picked for his first Ryder Cup team.

This season, he has finished outside the top 15 in just four of his 14 starts. He credits much of his improvement to a change in how he held the putter.

He has jumped 40 spots in Strokes Gained: Putting this season, a strong complement to one of the best iron games on TOUR. He was second in Strokes Gained: Putting this week.

He also has bucked the modern game by choosing to eschew distance in favor of accuracy. Straka, who is listed at 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, ranked 22nd in Driving Distance in his rookie season of 2019. He was in the top 50 of that stat in each of the following two seasons, as well.

But he was 146th in Driving Distance last season and is 137th thus far in 2025. There has been a corresponding uptick in his accuracy. He has finished no worse than 33rd in Driving Accuracy in each of the past three seasons after an average ranking of 104th in his first four seasons. He was eighth in Driving Accuracy last and is 13th in 2025.

The transformation occurred after he began working with swing instructor John Tillery just months before earning his first PGA TOUR win. He saw a quick improvement in his iron play, and he committed to hitting more fairways so he could take advantage of this new strength. He entered the Truist Championship ranked second in both Strokes Gained: Approach and Greens in Regulation this season.

“Once I started working with him, my iron play got really good,” Straka said. “At that point, I was just very much concerned with getting the ball on the fairway, so I could take advantage of that with my iron game.”

The straight and narrow is proving to be the right path for Straka.