Sepp Straka arrived at Quail Hollow Club this week as the de facto defending Truist Championship winner — the title he lifted in 2025 at Philadelphia Cricket Club, while Quail Hollow was busy hosting the PGA Championship — and the Austrian opened his defence with a four-under 66 that nudged him into the early mix before a second-round 73 dropped him back to T17 at three-under 139.
The Truist's traditional Charlotte home returns to its usual May date this year for the second time since the schedule rejig that has alternated the event with the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. That meant Straka, whose last competitive look at the layout came in the 2024 staging, spent the practice days re-acquainting himself with what Brian Kierdach's PGA Tour Live broadcast called "the hardest finishing hole on the PGA Tour."
Straka took the broadcast through the 18th himself ahead of the tournament. "It's a really good finishing hole," he said. "I usually hit driver if it's downwind a lot, I'll hit three wood sometimes, but most of the time it's driver just because you could lay back behind those bunkers. But then the shot into the green is really tough with a long iron. So try to push it up there as much as possible. You just have to execute two really good golf shots. And especially if you're coming down the stretch on a Sunday under some pressure, that's really tough to do."
The finishing hole has historically decided the trophy at the Charlotte stop, going back to the very first edition of the event in 2003, when David Toms, the runaway 54-hole leader, came undone over the closing stretch — a story PGA Tour Live's panel talked through in detail as a cautionary tale for whoever closes out Sunday.
Straka's own week began with the kind of opening round that suggested he could put the finishing-hole conversation on hold. He carded six-under early before settling into 66, a round punctuated by a 60-foot birdie roll on the par-three fifth from "almost 60 feet away," as the PGA Tour highlights commentary noted, before the broadcast added that the kind of putt "happens once, you know, maybe every couple of months."
Friday brought the brakes. Straka backed up his 66 with a 73 that left him five strokes adrift of overnight leader Matt McCarty, who set a Quail Hollow ShotLink record with a 63 in Round 1 before holding firm into the weekend. The 24-place slide on the leaderboard was one of the wider 36-hole differentials in the field, but Straka remains in striking range of the lead with two rounds to play.
The broader fascination this week has been with the assembly of the field rather than any single contender. Straka's name shares the past-champions list with multiple winners Rory McIlroy and Max Homa — both of whom hold separate Quail Hollow trophies — alongside reigning FedEx Cup champion Tommy Fleetwood, who looked smooth in practice with what the PGA Tour Live crew called his usual collection of "alignment sticks and yoga blocks" on the range.
Straka's day-of preparation, by contrast, was notable for how compressed it was. PGA Tour Live's range coverage clocked his pre-practice-round session at "about 12 minutes" of ball-striking before he was "out of here" ahead of an approaching rain shower — a workman's start to a defence that, on the Truist's most-feared closing hole at least, will hinge on the same simple maths he laid out on Tuesday: two good swings, one fairway, one green.
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*Originally published on [Golf News](https://golfnews.global/article/sepp-straka-defending-champion-truist-2026-quail-hollow-18th-hole). Visit for full coverage.*
