American Express champion Sepp Straka proves he’s a rising PGA Tour star

Sepp Straka is a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, but there are still plenty of golf fans who don’t really know who he is. That might change in light of his strong performance in The American Express.

Straka went 69 holes in the La Quinta tournament without a bogey before making bogeys on two of his final three holes. But he was so strong before that the two late bogeys only cut into his margin of victory. The 31-year-old is building a nice career in professional golf, especially if you look at the numbers and his back story.

For instance:

** Straka now has a win on the PGA Tour in three of the last four seasons, showing a consistency that means he can win at different venues and different times of the year. He also has three runner-up finishes on tour, so he doesn’t just show up for a win and then disappear for a year.

** Since he is Austrian by birth, many people expect a strong accent when he speaks. But his mother is American, and his family moved to Georgia in his teens. He played golf at the University of Georgia, and you can’t really hear an accent.

** Still, Straka is the seventh international golfer to win the American Express, joining Bruce Devlin (Australia), Jesper Parnevik (Sweden), Mike Weir (Canada), Jhonattan Vegas (Venezuela), two-time winner Jon Rahm (Spain) and Si Woo Kim (South Korea).

** He was a member of the victorious European Ryder Cup team in 2023, compiling a 1-2-0 record including a singles loss to Justin Thomas, who finished second to Straka in The American Express on Sunday. He might be a longshot to make the 2025 European team since he is ranked just 60th in points for the European team at the moment. But Sunday’s win certainly puts him back in the running.

Thomas so close

Justin Thomas played in The American Express in 2015, then didn’t play the desert PGA Tour event again until 2024. Based on the results of his last two starts here, Thomas might regret missing the tournament for all those years.

After a strong third-place finish in 2024 that included an 11-under 61 on the Pete Dye Stadium Course, Thomas made a final-round charge that produced a 66 on the Stadium Course on Sunday and a second-place finish behind Straka. Thomas was happy but not convinced he played his best golf.

“I feel like I managed everything really well and got it around well, only two bogeys all week,” Thomas said. “But, yeah, in a place like this you got to be pretty sharp all around, and I’ll just keep building.”

With the $918,000 check for finishing second in the $8.8 million event, Thomas becomes the latest PGA Tour player to surpass the $60 million mark in career earnings. He is now 10th all time at $60,827,898, passing Matt Kuchar on the list. Thomas is still just under $60 million shy of all-time leader Tiger Woods.

Maturity or experience?

Maybe it was the difference between being 17 years old and 21, or maybe it was the difference between a first professional start versus having two PGA Tour victories. But analyzing the third rounds of Blades Brown and Nick Dunlap at The American Express might show what it takes to make it on the PGA Tour.

Brown, the 17-year-old making his first professional start, made three birdies in his first five holes on the TPC Stadium Course and was 11 under, well inside the cut line that would come at 9 under. Dunlap, the defending champion of The American Express, made a birdie, a bogey and a double bogey in his first five holes and was at 6 under, well outside the cut line.

But the last 13 holes for both players were polar opposites. Brown, unshakeable for the first two days, suddenly lost momentum. He played holes 6 through 18 with no birdies, three bogeys and one damaging double bogey when he found water on the par-3 17th. His round of 74 left him 6 under.

Dunlap, on the other hand, rallied in a way that allowed him to cash a check. The same 13 holes for Dunlap produced four birdies and one head-scratching bogey on the par-5 16th. That allowed Dunlap to make the cut. Dunlap didn’t make a dime at the tournament in 2024 despite winning, since he was an amateur golfer at the time.

The final round, even the final 13 holes, show Dunlap as a winner on tour who understands what it takes to make a cut, and Brown as a young golfer who hopes to learn what Dunlap already knows.

A rebound

William Mouw made national golf news in the second round of The American Express by spending his afternoon in the sand at the par-5 16th hole on the way to an octuple bogey 13. But Mouw, a tour rookie out of Pepperdine and the Korn Ferry Tour, turned around on Saturday for a solid comeback.

Mouw shot 5-under 67 at La Quinta Country Club. The round included a double-bogey 7 on the par-5 11th, his second hole of the day. But after that, Mouw played the course with eight birdies and two bogeys, including six birdies in his final seven holes. He finished the week with rounds of 68, 81 and 67.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: American Express champion Sepp Straka proves he’s a rising PGA Tour star