Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry are three shots clear of the Truist Championship field after late birdies

Jeff Neiburg, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 10, 2025

Published in Golf

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PHILADELPHIA — Winning a golf tournament is stressful, and so Sepp Straka’s Sunday will come with pressure and queasiness. The Austrian built like a linebacker is tied for the lead with Shane Lowry at the Truist Championship after a 4-under 66 Saturday at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.

Sunday will be about managing all that comes with playing in a final pairing. If the end of his round Saturday is any indication, Straka, who has one win and three total top 10s in 13 events this season, seems plenty capable of handling it.

“You’re going to feel terrible while trying to do it, but that’s just part of it,” he said. “That kind of makes it fun when you are able to pull it off.”

The end of Saturday had to be fun. Straka had to work for the partial lead. He drove the ball into the left fairway bunker on No. 17, a 489-yard uphill par 4 that has surrendered to fewer birdies than all but four holes this week on the Wissahickon Course. He had 173 yards left on his uphill but downwind approach, which he calmly knocked to 25 feet right of a middle pin. The field’s best putter this week rolled in a relatively flat putt through the side door for the solo lead.

He threatened to give that lead back on 18, where he found the top-right greenside bunker. With plenty of green to work with, he left his pitch shot 16-plus feet short of the pin. But he jarred a no-doubter to save par.

Straka, 32 and the 17th-ranked player in the world, will start Sunday tied with Lowry because Lowry, too, made a birdie on hole 17 behind him. Though Lowry’s hole was played much more conventionally. He pounded a 327-yard drive over the right bunker and had 162 yards in from the right fairway. Lowry pulled a 9-iron and landed it left of the pin. The ball hopped past the hole before using the ledge to roll back to nearly four feet.

Lowry is the 12th-ranked player in the world but hasn’t won a solo event since a European Tour win in 2022, and his last win prior to that was at The Open in 2019.

“Obviously you want trophies, and that’s going to be my number one goal tomorrow,” he said. “If it happens tomorrow, it would be great.

“It’s a funny old game. There’s obviously some of the best players in the world not too far behind us.”

Lowry and Straka are three shots clear of the field. They are trailed most closely by Justin Thomas and Keith Mitchell, who are both at 11-under. Mitchell, the leader after each of the first two rounds, shot 1-over 71, while Thomas said he fought his game a little but managed 4-under on a golf course that played much different Saturday than the previous two days.

Thursday brought pristine scoring conditions with the short course softened from rain earlier in the week. Friday brought more precipitation and some higher scores. On Saturday, it was windy and dry, and the greens were much faster as the day progressed.

“It’s great to see the way the conditions come into it today,” Lowry said. “The golf course is standing up really well.”

Hideki Matsuyama, by himself in fifth place at 10-under, had the low round of the day at 7-under 63. Behind him are five players tied at 8-under, a group that includes Rory McIlroy. The Masters champion birdied three consecutive holes on the front nine to get into the mix, but made double-bogey on the par-4 seventh hole and then bogeyed the par-3 eighth. He made up a stroke with a birdie on No. 10, but parred his way in.

McIlroy played Saturday with Collin Morikawa, who also made a few birdies on the front. The two were followed most of the day by throngs of fans. But behind them, Straka and Lowry were quietly climbing to the top before finishing their rounds with fireworks, Straka from two bunkers and Lowry with a dart on 17 and a delicate pitch to save par on 18.

There is little doubt about which of the two will be the crowd favorite. There have been Irish flags out and about in a region that is home to one of the largest population of Irish-Americans in the U.S. It doesn’t hurt that he spent part of his Wednesday playing nine holes with Jason Kelce, either.

Everything the former Eagles center touches lately seems to turn to gold.