Sepp Straka, Austria’s first PGA Tour winner, talks about his rise to the top and why he likes to ‘expect the unexpected’ in golf
Sepp Straka will head to The Masters in mid-April as a fully paid-up member of the ‘anything can happen in golf’ school of thought. He believes he is living proof of that, a view that helps to convince him he can go one better than his runner-up finish at last year’s Open and pull on a coveted Green Jacket in the state where he grew up.
Straka was born in Austria, but at the age of 14, the family moved to his mother’s place of birth, Valdosta in southern Georgia, just a couple of hours away from Augusta National.
He also went to college at one of America’s most celebrated golf ‘nurseries’, UGA - the University of Georgia – as did the man who finished in front of him last year at Hoylake, Brian Harman, and double Masters Champion Bubba Watson. Studying at UGA also brought playing privileges at Augusta National, so it is no wonder he has always dreamed of winning The Masters.
Middle-of-the-road finishes of tied 30th and tied 46th in his two starts at Augusta so far have hardly identified him as a strong candidate to be fitted for that Green Jacket. But achieving his best finishes in the Majors so far last year – a tie for 7th at the US PGA Championship before a share of 2nd place at Hoylake – has convinced the Austrian that he has the game to win at the highest level.
That belief was reinforced when he made a triumphant Ryder Cup debut in Rome, before breaking into the world’s top 20 for the first time at the start of this year. And Straka’s mantra these days is that “you never know what is waiting around the next corner”.
The most striking piece of evidence to back that up came with the victory at the previous week’s John Deere Classic that sent him into the 2023 Open Championship on a real high. The Austrian ace clinched his second PGA Tour title there in record-breaking fashion. He was tied for 133rd place at the Illinois event after a two-over-par 73 in the opening round, and admitted that he was thinking about catching an earlier flight to Hoylake rather than picking up a cheque for $1,332,000!
But rounds of 63, 65 and 62 sent him charging to 21-under-par to complete the most spectacular rise up the leaderboard since the PGA Tour began keeping official records almost 40 years ago.
BOOST OF CONFIDENCE
Straka still chuckles at the memory of that unlikely two-shot victory. “Yeah, I was told afterwards that no-one had ever come back from further than that after round one, and it doesn’t surprise me. My win did, but not that particular stat!” he says.
“But look, I’ve seen enough in this game to realise you never know what’s coming next. I’ve almost gotten used to expect
