THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY WORKDAY

May 31, 2025

Sepp Straka

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. You've had a very interesting tournament. Yesterday I saw three double bogeys, I don't know if you last time you had that in a round and then today. How do you explain these two days?

SEPP STRAKA: Very different. I had trouble yesterday in the rain hitting my driver in the fairway, got in some tough positions and, yeah, it's easy to get out of position on this golf course. Any time you're on a tee you can either make a double or you can make a birdie. It's one of those courses where there's a lot of volatility, and today I executed pretty well, judged my lies very well, and judged the wind very well, which I did not do the first two days.

Q. How did you regroup after yesterday?

SEPP STRAKA: I felt like I played pretty good. Three doubles and still to shoot 1-over was pretty nice. I hit a lot of quality shots. The three doubles were, I would hit one bad shot and find myself in a position where it was hard to make a bogey, I was not able to kind of get up-and-down. Today was a lot more controlled. I hit it great off the tee, judged the mud balls very well, and yeah, judged the wind very well. The first day I was very bad at judging the wind, so it was nice to kind of have that today.

Q. Your results have gradually gotten better here through the years. What part is figuring out the course better and what part is your game being better overall?

SEPP STRAKA: I think it's a good combination. The golf course has changed over those years that I've been here, but I think the big thing is here you just have to have, you have to stripe it, you have to play well. Last year I remember I was hitting the ball really well this time of the year and that definitely helped me. In the year before that I must have hit it pretty good too. I think most of it is probably playing well these weeks.

Q. Where would you, in terms of what a U.S. Open demands and this course demands, what are the similarities, how similar is this test to a typical U.S. Open?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, I would say pretty similar. You just have to, the margins are so small here, like they are in a U.S. Open, because the rough is so thick, if you miss the fairway you're probably having to chip out or be very aggressive and take double into play. I think it's very similar in that aspect, that you just have to put the ball in the fairway and then from there I don't want to say you can attack but you at least have a good chance of hitting a good iron shot into the green.

Q. I think you're tied for 5th. When you started the day did you have any kind of goal where you want to be or just play the course?

SEPP STRAKA: Just play the course. With the conditions today it was just, it was easy to kind of keep my head down, because it was really tough out there. Yeah, I was just trying to play the course and got a hot putter today and was able to hit some irons in there close, so, yeah, just really happy with that.

Q. No bogeys.

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, no bogeys from three triples and a bogey to no bogeys today, so that was an improvement, I guess.

Q. The top kind of two guys in the world right now, Rory and Scottie, is there any one, any part of their games or their approach that, I guess, either one and/or the other, that you admire or have learned from them or have tried to kind of pick up something to implement into your game?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, Rory's just a generational talent with a driver and pretty much everything else, but the driver is just incredible. I'm not going to try to ever try to drive it that way because I might end up losing my game. Scottie's precision with the irons is incredible. He can control his distances so well with different trajectories. I haven't really tried to implement any of that in my game, I've just been trying to kind of do my own thing and improve the areas of my game that need improving and, yeah, just trying to approach it that way. Those guys are pretty special.

Q. What's something you like about yourself?

SEPP STRAKA: My golf game?

Q. Anything.

SEPP STRAKA: (Laughing). I would say my approach to constantly just try to improve my game. No matter if you had a great year, not a good year, just always try to work on the weaknesses and keep the process tweaked to where you just keep trying to improve your game and get better.

Q. Was there a moment today when you kind of realized you were on and things were just clicking?

SEPP STRAKA: I would say, I don't really know. Just kind of found myself I think 4-under going into 15 and hit a good drive on 15, so that was nice. Knew that if I could birdie that one going for it in two I would have some pretty tough holes coming in. I didn't really look at those as chances to get 1-under on those last three, but, yeah, I knew that I had a pretty good round going. I was able to kind of finish it off on 18 there.