Defending champ Sepp Straka feeling heat of competition at The American Express

As the defending champion of The American Express, Sepp Straka may be the one the others are all looking to beat, but the Austrian says he feels the intensity of the competition coming out to kick off the 2026 PGA Tour schedule on Thursday in La Quinta, Calif.

"I think the competition, the fact that you got to beat ... I guess there was 156 guys, and now it's 100-whatever guys. It's a lot of really, really, really good players that are all playing the same golf course," Straka told reporters at Wednesday's tournament press conference.

"They're all trying to win. If you have the lead, then everybody's trying to make birdies to try to beat you, and you can't make mistakes. So I think just the depth of the competition is what makes it really hard."

Straka's two-shot win over Justin Thomas at this tournament last season set the foundation for an outstanding year. He played for the victorious European Ryder Cup team and earlier won the Truist Championship in May for his fourth PGA Tour title, which he said was more than he thought he'd have when he started playing professionally.

Yet, he said he still finds himself striving for more.

"As you grow, as you get those, then all of a sudden you're thinking it's not enough. So it's never going to be enough, no matter where you are," Straka said.

The improvement in the level of competitive play in recent years has only made gaining wins more challenging, the 32-year-old told reporters.

"Every year you got new talent coming out, young guys coming out, that are unbelievably good at golf, and that are way better than I was when I was coming out of college or high school. So, yeah, it's really tough. And it's going to keep getting younger, and it's going to keep getting more athletic, faster. You just don't know how much longer you got, but you got to just keep trying to get better at golf and hopefully it's good enough."

While some other golfers set tournament wins as goals, Straka said he sets his sights differently.

"My goals are more of daily. So daily I want to make sure I do my putting drills. I want to make sure I do my drills on the range. I do my Trackman combine. I go in the gym and do my swing drills, my technical drills. And, hopefully, those end up resulting in some good tournaments," he said.

"My goal is always to improve my golf game and continue my process. Especially in practice, just continue to do all the things that kind of improve my golf game, and that's going to be my goal again this year is to try to improve."

--Field Level Media