Austria’s Sepp Straka claimed the American Express title after successfully holding off Justin Thomas and Jason Day with a two-shot victory at the La Quinta Country Club in California.
The 31-year-old had cruised through the week, with not one bogey. But it was at the 16th on Sunday where his almost-history-making streak was broken.
With 69 consecutive bogey-free holes, Straka needed three more to join the exclusive group consisting of Lee Trevino (1974), J.T. Poston (2019) and Tom Kim (2022) as the only three players to win a 72-hole event without recording a single bogey.
On the par-15 16th, Straka sent his shot ahead to the right and to avoid the PGA West’s notoriously difficult bunker, his third shot was just shy of the green. He missed a 17-foot par putt, after his pitch from 50 feet came up short, and he tapped in for his first critical bogey of the week. He also bogeyed the 18th after landing in a bunker and missing the 23-foot par putt. But his two-shot lead and masterful play all week was enough for him to earn his third career PGA TOUR title and claim the $1.5 million prize.
“Yeah, 16, you just don’t want to end up in the bunker down there, so I kind of bailed out right a little bit,” Straka said afterwards.
“It was unfortunate it was in a kind of a tire track next to the cart path but we couldn’t get cart path relief. It was real grainy down there. I wanted to get it up closer to the green to where I could kind of putt it in. It kind of came out real slow and, yeah, from there, again, you just don’t want to make the mistake of going long. I got a little cute with it and spun it too much. Overall, I hit a good putt and tried to make it.”
The Austrian also admitted to major nerves during the final round.
“Nerves, just complete nerves,” he said. “Stomach in a knot, the whole nine. So, yeah, just really excited about the way I handled the pressure today.”
Thomas finished two shots behind at 23 under, whilst his fellow American Justin Lower and Australia’s Jason Day shared third at 22 under.
WHAT IS THE NEXT EVENT?
The next event on the PGA TOUR schedule is the Farmers Insurance Open taking pace between 22-25 January at the Torrey Pines South Course and others in California.