THE 153RD OPEN

July 17, 2025

Sepp Straka

Mixed Zone

Q. Tell us about the round; what was tough today and what worked for you?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, conditions were pretty tough. Good amount of wind. A lot of crosswinds, which made it pretty hard to get the ball close to the hole. Early on was battling my swing a little bit, but I feel like after hole 8, I kind of settled in a little bit and started hitting some pretty good shots. Yeah, it was tough to get a ball close to make birdies.

Q. You've been around the links for a while, so embracing these conditions, embracing the weather? What is your mental trick?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, for sure. You just have to take it as it comes. There might be stretches where it's pretty gettable and you've got to take advantage, and then there might be stretches where you just aim at the middle of the green.

Really just adjust your strategy to the course conditions.

Q. Just overall attitude and mindset, how do you keep a good attitude with conditions?

SEPP STRAKA: You just have to focus on the shot at hand, and I feel like the conditions almost make that easier because you just have so much to think about, so much to worry about with the shot, you can't really worry about where you are in the tournament, where you are on the leaderboard.

Q. Is it easy to think it's just you a lot of times and not the whole field doing the same thing?

SEPP STRAKA: At times, yeah, but everybody has got at least two guys that they're watching, too. When they're not getting it really close to the holes, it also kind of shows you that it is kind of pretty tough out there.