Sepp Straka outlasts Shane Lowry to win Truist Championship

Jeff Neiburg, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 11, 2025

Published in Golf

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PHILADELPHIA — If it wasn’t going to be Rory McIlroy, another Irishman would suffice. In the final pairing Sunday, Shane Lowry was the no-doubt crowd favorite. Irish flags and soccer kits dotted some of the galleries. Every time he and Sepp Straka moved between holes, it was a Lowry love fest in the final round of the Truist Championship in a metro area filled with Irish-Americans.

One fan in a hospitality tent tried to help Lowry read his 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th green by telling him: “Left edge. All day.” Lowry missed right and saved par to stay one shot behind Straka, but the damage was done a hole earlier, when Lowry, the eventual runner-up to Straka, missed left with his tee shot, pitched to seven feet, and missed his par save.

Straka, who parred the 16th for a one-shot lead, was steady down the stretch and cool under pressure. The “Go Birds” chants that came in between cheers for Lowry were comforting for a former University of Georgia Bulldog who said he found himself rooting for the Eagles to support the Bulldogs that made up the NFL’s best defense.

Straka, who was playing with a fill-in caddy, Drew Mathers, a friend who grinds the mini-tours, had a share of the Sunday lead because of his bunker play on the final two holes of his round Saturday. So it was cruelly fitting that he found himself in a bunker down the left side with his tee shot on 18 while clinging to a one-shot lead. The 6-3 Austrian talked Saturday about managing his emotions Sunday knowing that he was going to “feel terrible while trying to do it.”

He walked down the 18th fairway just hoping for a good lie and got it. He stepped into the bunker, 207 yards away from the flag, and delivered a strike with a 4-iron that landed on the green and rolled to 31 feet from the hole, a makeable birdie putt but, more importantly, a manageable two-putt.

“My fairway bunker game has historically been pretty bad,” Straka said. “This week it’s been really good. I was able to kind of capitalize on that and make good contact.

“Yeah, it was one of the better shots I hit this week.”

It never mattered. Lowry, who missed into the left rough off the tee, applied pressure with a second shot that finished 27 feet away. But he three-putted, making Straka’s $3.6 million winning putt less stressful.

After so much talk about A.W. Tillinghast’s old-but-short course getting destroyed in a signature PGA Tour event, and after the field proved those predictions at least possible by tearing it up Thursday, Straka won at 16-under. That score was just seven shots better than the opening-round 61 that put Keith Mitchell ahead. The players essentially faced four different golf courses over their four rounds, and the course got firmer and faster as the weekend wore on.

“It was fun to play it in kind of four different conditions, the first day being very benign and then the rain, then the wind,” said Straka, who won for the second time this season. “Today it started getting a little firmer but not quite as much wind. Really fun to play the course in all four different conditions, and it kind of made you think a lot, especially teeing off.”

Hideki Matsuyama fired a 7-under on Saturday, but no one further down the leaderboard went that low Sunday. Patrick Cantlay raised some eyebrows on his way to finishing at 12-under. Justin Thomas, the other fan favorite of the day, got within one before bogeying the 16th hole. He finished tied for second with Lowry.

One of Straka or Lowry had the lead all day. Lowry made just one birdie on the back nine, the par-5 15th, which Straka also birdied. Lowry, one of the best players in the world, hasn’t won a solo tournament since the British Open in 2019. He was so distraught coming off the course that on his way to the scoring trailer he walked past McIlroy, who had waited around a half hour after his round for his countryman to come off the course and offered encouragement before he signed his card.

Lowry, a proponent of a cooling off period during a season when media availability on the PGA Tour has been a topic, did not agree to interviews.

McIlroy, who shot 2-under Sunday and finished tied for seventh, was pulling for his friend. But Straka’s win may help him find his way into being McIlroy’s teammate later this year.

“He told me at least this win counts for Ryder Cup points,” Straka said of McIlroy. “Really, really happy for that. I’ve been kind of behind in the points. ... I knew that, if I just kept playing good golf, I would have a chance to be there.”

In the end it wasn’t the crowd favorite, but it was the honorary Eagles fan who rose a silver cricket bat trophy.

“That’s pretty cool,” Straka said. “I think that’s a one-and-done. That’s going to be my most special trophy for sure.

“It was an awesome experience to play in front of the Philly fans. I think next year maybe the PGA is coming back here. So really looking forward to that opportunity.”

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