Q. You started a handful of shots behind Scottie today. I don't know how realistic you thought it was to try to chase him down, but how daunting is it when you have somebody at the top of the leaderboard like him as opposed to somebody else?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, you know Scottie's probably going to play a good round of golf. The guy's relentless. He loves competition, and he doesn't like giving up shots. But it's one of those courses where it can always happen, so you got to be prepared for it.
I felt like I gave myself a lot of chances to kind of make a push. Didn't have my best iron game today, but, yeah, overall, I'm very happy with the performance.
Q. To that point, what changed over the weekend and how do you ride that momentum going forward?
SEPP STRAKA: Not much changed. It was the same golf game. I had trouble on Friday hitting some fairways, some key fairways, and got in some pretty bad positions off the tee. It's one of those courses where even if you're just marginally off, you can make a lot of big numbers, and that kind of happened on Friday. I made six birdies on Friday and shot 1-over. So I knew my game was in a pretty good place and I was just happy to make the weekend and was able to capitalize on that.
Q. It sounds like something someone would say during a U.S. Open. Do you feel like those conditions will prepare you well for Oakmont?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, I think so. I think it's a similar test in the sense that you -- I mean, I've never played Oakmont, but just looking at the rough, you'll probably want to be in the fairway. It's a similar test to where if you're not in the fairway here, you don't have a chance. I'm expecting the same here in a couple weeks.
Q. Of all the things about Scottie that are impressive, what impresses you the most about him?
SEPP STRAKA: I would say, the few times I've played with him recently, the way that he can control his distances with different trajectories, different shapes, I think that's pretty impressive, with his iron shots. That's probably the most impressive thing. But it's a long list, a long list of things that makes him impressive. That's why he's as good as he is.
Q. What's your prep work look like going into Oakmont?
SEPP STRAKA: Going to be at home, so probably a little of -- this week was pretty -- a little bit grueling. It's a tough test, so a couple days of rest and then try to get after it and just keep my same process at home that I usually do.
Q. Is it hard to wrap your head around, from a mental approach, dealing with ball goes in the rough, bad lie, good lie, different lie, you talked about it, six birdies and you're 1-over? Is it hard to do that?
SEPP STRAKA: It is. At least at this place, you know that if you're in the rough, it's not going to be a good lie, so that's I guess the good thing. Yeah, you're standing on the tee box, it's easy to kind of get steery and try to guide it into the fairways here, but that usually doesn't end up in more fairways hit, so you just have to pick your targets and really be aggressive and make good swings at it and hopefully you're swinging it good that week because, yeah, from the rough, you just don't have any chance.
Q. You said you stuck to your game plan that you had at the beginning of the week, but two days didn't work very well and two days it did work very well. Can you explain that?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, so the first day, I feel like the wind was bounding around a lot. I got the wind wrong. There was the middle stretch where I think I bogeyed four or five holes and I got the wind wrong on all five of the holes. These sections are so small on the greens, the margin for error is so small, that if you're thinking it's 10 miles an hour into, but it's actually five miles an hour into off the right, then you can -- that's double bogey. I did that on 9. I was able to save a bogey there.
But, yeah, just stuff like that the first day. And then the second day, I really just had trouble off the tee. I tried to do the same game plan, but I was in the rough a lot and got myself in some pretty funky positions.
Q. Have you gotten better throughout your career at staying in the present and not thinking about the past or the future when you're out there or do you always feel like you were always good at it?
SEPP STRAKA: I have definitely gotten better. The more times you can put yourself in pressure situations late on Sundays, those are generally times when you learn something and you try to take something from that to the next week and you just kind of get used to dealing with all of the distractions that come with it.
Q. Is that something you have to work on consciously or is it just the experience that gradually --
SEPP STRAKA: It's a little bit of both. So in the moment, you're not really working on it, but after you're done, after you decompress and kind of look back at the round, you kind of do an honest evaluation of how you did mentally. And that's hard to do sometimes because it's hard to look back at a round and be like, Well, I let my mind cost me a shot or two on this hole. But, yeah, that's kind of what you have to do. Then you kind of realize why you made that mistake and then you move on to the next one.
Q. Is that something that seems like Scottie's pretty good at?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, seems like he's really good at it. He's had a lot of experience in those situations, so I'm sure that that probably has helped, because early on I think there was definitely some times when people said he should have won more or whatever that is. I mean, I don't know about that, but I'm sure he's learned a lot over the years of how to deal with those situations and the pressure that comes with it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports