KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 28, 2022

Alex Cejka

Press Conference

Harbor Shores

JULIUS MASON: We know you are straight off the plane from Portugal, so two quick questions. What was the weather like in Portugal, and have you ever been to Michigan or Benton Harbor before?

ALEX CEJKA: So the first time I was here, in Portugal it was cold and rainy which is not normal for Portugal, especially in the wintertime. It was a long trip yesterday but I'm excited to be here. I've never been in this area I've, played, years, years ago we had in Flint up north the Buick Classic I think where Tiger Woods, he won it every year I believe he played it. But here in this area, it's my first trip, and I've seen a lot of nice stuff.

JULIUS MASON: So let's talk about what we did this morning on your journey, learning more about the community where we are here in Benton Harbor. We started with a stop at Forte Coffee and then we went to Glass Works and then we had some time on the St. Joseph River with Angler of the Year Ron Nelson. But talk about the first stop.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, it was interesting to see, I had never done anything like this, the history of the building, how they transformed basically a house into an art studio and seeing something like this, it was interesting. He let me -- I created something, I don't know what it was but I create something. It was a really neat experience, and it was something -- I may be wanted to look in because when he showed us how to properly do a piece of glass or a bottle, whatever he was doing, and the art and the creation, the way it was done, it was incredible. I had never seen anything like this. I had a little taste where I blew in the tube for like two seconds.

But to really create something with an artist, I want to do it again. So hopefully in a couple weeks when we come back, I hope I can visit that place again and maybe create something for my home.

JULIUS MASON: So we eventually went over to the St. Joseph river, and you had an experience. We know you love fishing, you did that as a youngster growing up and you spent some time on the river today with a nationally recognized angler. Tell us about what happened back there.

ALEX CEJKA: It's a different kind of fishing what I'm used to. Being from Europe, we fish mainly in ponds, little rivers, different kind of fish. Seeing a real professional do the moves and how easy it was for him operating the boot, looking at the navigation charts, casting, teaching me, taking care of the camera guys if they don't fall in, multitasking, it was incredible. It looks so easy. It's too cold for fishing, means the fish don't bite but he caught three or four and I did none.

JULIUS MASON: Did you help him.

ALEX CEJKA: I help him, yeah. I was like, oh, I saw a fish over there, I saw a fish over there. So no, he knew exactly what he's doing. It was incredible to see. It's always nice to see a great fisherman in his environment and doing stuff. It always looks so easy. Doesn't matter what it is when you see a real professional do it. When you do it yourself, it's like crazy, not good.

JULIUS MASON: I'm going to ask to you look at something and I want you to describe it.

ALEX CEJKA: Yes. It's not me. My twin brother. Literally we went on the water, casted a couple of times. He literally had a bite like ten seconds into our trip and that shows you how good those guys are, they see the chart and they know exactly what they are doing.

I reeled this one in, so I'm pretty proud. You know, as I said, we have different fish in Europe and to catch a bass, it's a pretty good size. Yeah, it was a good day on the boat.

JULIUS MASON: A lot of journalists here, all about facts. Tell everybody here how many layers you were wearing.

ALEX CEJKA: I think five layers and it was below freezing.

JULIUS MASON: Does anybody have more than five layers on right now in this building? Very good. All right.

I think your journey to where you are today is one of the most amazing stories in the entire golf world. You and your family face incredible obstacles. If you don't mind, if you can spend a couple of minutes just letting everybody know, what it was like back when you were in the Czech Republic.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, I was born in the Czech Republic. Obviously it was still Communism when I was young. My parents decided that's not the they want for them or their kids, so my dad decided to try and escape through the Czech Republic. You know, I was nine years old. When you're that young, you don't know what the danger, what the story, what your dad has in his mind.

So when we made the trip for me, it was like a vacation. I was a young, little kid. I didn't know how tricky, difficult, deadly it can be back then and a huge credit to my dad that he did it with basically an eight- or nine-year-old kid to leave his home, his country, immigrate to a different country with different language. No skills no, work, no home, no nothing. It was very tough.

I think the trip took a couple weeks. I was too young to understand exactly how long. I remember very vaguely just a couple things, but the most important I remember when my dad just, you know, started crying, hugged me, said, "You did it, we did it." I had no idea what that meant. Somehow we were in Germany somehow and as a young kid, you don't really feel -- literally, the Czech Republic and Germany, you don't know the difference and you don't know what Communism is, and you don't know basically what a s--- life Communism can be. When all this happened, I'm so grateful that my dad had the courage to do it. And I'm just grateful that everything turned out totally different 40, 50 years later.

JULIUS MASON: And you stand here today as a two-time Major Champion. It really is quite remarkable and speaking of Major Champion, I know it was a long time ago but let's take a quick look at what happened last May.

(Video played.)

"Everybody was making bogeys, you just focus on your game and you have 18 holes to go and all you can influence is your game. I can't influence anybody else's game. I just wanted to play great. That's all you can do.

"There's never enough lead on this golf course. Down the stretch, what really turned my game and head around was the par save on 10. I hit a great tee shot and aimed at the water and I made up-and-down from 120 yards. That kind of got me a little bit going."

(Video played.)

JULIUS MASON: Alex, there are many in the world of professional golf who play their entire lives and don't win a major championship. You won two in a row. But I also heard you talk about how difficult or nervous you were playing the second one. Talk about that a little bit.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, so I was a rookie last year. With the status and I had with the virus and all the problems, I had to Monday qualify for the first two tournaments and I made it through qualifier, made it to the event. I think the second tournament in Naples, I played really well and that boosted my confidence a little bit.

Then playing the Tradition, I knew I was playing great. I really liked the golf course and I have nothing to lose. Although my goal was to make me a better category, keep my card, basically. There's only 80 spots every week on the Champions Tour so it's tough to get a tee time. Once you have it, yes, you can survive but so many great players, major champions, all famous, I mean, the list goes on and on.

To be a part of that, that was my goal. So I wasn't really nervous. I knew I was playing well. I wasn't nervous. All the way into the last round going into the playoff, it was a new -- it didn't really matter if I'm going to win or lose the playoff. I knew it's another great week and boost of my confidence.

But then suddenly you win. A lot of things change. Not in yourself but for the outcome that you can play the week after or three weeks or maybe for two years when you have a category. So that was a major relief mentally for me.

Then obviously coming a couple of weeks later into this event, I knew I'm playing great. Suddenly the big pressure was gone because I already had a category.

So I don't have to fight if I lose my card or if I have to go back to Tour School, so everything was a little bit freer, and I literally come, I didn't know the course. I come to the golf course. I played practice rounds. I already loved it, plus my game was on fire. Somehow I pulled it off. I don't even know how, but I was nervous, especially down the last couple holes, what a difference in the head, my head, it was, bringing in, I didn't care if I finished first or second or third. I just wanted to play great.

Now I already won one and now I'm playing for the second one. You play in the last group and you play for the championship. You have a couple holes to go. You suddenly have the lead and your mind starts thinking, you don't want to blow the lead, you don't want to choke. We have seen so many tournaments in the past where people choke, some people execute, win easily. But on that golf course, you never know under pressure, you never know, because even if you are a superstar or a normal player, you never know in this game. You can lose a tournament on a hole with two or three bad shots, penalty shots, that's it.

So even if I had a three-shot lead on the last or something, I don't even know. I wanted to finish the job and win it. It's not over until it's over.

So I was grinding the last three or four holes, I didn't make the greens so I had to make great up-and-downs for pars, what in the end saved me and won the tournament. It could have gone the other way as well but sometimes the cards are in your favor and I somehow pulled it off.

JULIUS MASON: You talk about the difficulty of this golf course. One of the toughest golf courses if the country, and I think you said, it was a shock to your system to see what happened to Mike Weir and Steve Stricker coming down the stretch. What did you mean by that.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, especially Steve Stricker, what a player he is; what a career he had; and what form he was in, too. And then Sunday, he's in the lead and he had just a terrible start on Sunday. He three-putted the first and hit it in the water and plus three-putted on the second, mistakes you don't really see from players like this very often, almost seldom.

You know, that boosts a little bit your confidence and your game when you see somebody, I don't want to say fall in the beginning, but show nerves, as well. It shows you that he's human and not every round is 67 or 65. Even those players can shoot 73 or 74. Luckily it was in the time when I'm playing great and somebody is not having a great day. As I said, sometimes it works like this in every game, and Mike Weir, he kind of had a bad finish. He was up there as well.

But I think Steve lost the tournament in the first couple holes where he was already like 3-, 4-over par. It's tough to see because everybody who played great tournaments I guess is on either side, played great or got nervous and played bad, however you want to call it.

JULIUS MASON: So we are just 59 days away from the most historic championship in senior golf, and I think we might have a slide here which we'll talk a little bit about the strength of field that we've been talking about a little bit here.

As you can see, we were talking a little bit about Steve Stricker and Mike Weir, but there's a particular name on this slide that I'd like to ask you about because I think it's somebody that you kind of looked up to when you were learning the game of golf and playing the game of golf. Can you talk about Bernhard?

ALEX CEJKA: Yes, of course, growing up in Germany, especially in the '80s when Bernhard turned into a superstar I want to call, it winning a lot of tournaments, winning a major, the first one was the Masters. We didn't have big TV coverage back then so it was tough to follow on TV. I could only follow a couple tournaments when he was close by where I was living, and we had two tournaments. It was our National Championship where he played actually on my home course, and then on The European Tour, we had the German Open that was literally across the street. Those boys, most of them you see here from Olazabal, Vijay, Monty, all those guys were great stars back then. So I obviously followed everybody's career.

But Bernhard, especially because he was German, he was the only German player who was a professional, playing professional, a star, played against the other great guys in America, in Europe. And it was just fascinating to see.

So he was my idol, when he came to play our National Championship on my home golf course, I skipped school and I went to the golf course and I watched this guy play, and it was an inspiration. Not only he's A great player but he's a great guy and you don't know, but then you go out and you play tournaments with him and you get to know him and he's exactly what you expect from a superstar, being nice to everybody and a true gentleman.

I wanted when I grow up, I wanted to do what he does and to be like him, so a golf professional.

Q. When you're coming to a new course, what are some things that you look for?

ALEX CEJKA: So it's tough when you play a new golf course for the first time where a lot of guys played over the years many tournaments up there, so you play a lot of practice rounds two or three times.

For me, especially last year as a rookie, I played a lot of tournaments for the first time on this tour, and it's tricky. You have to play more attention and you want to play as many practice rounds as possible, and you pay attention to what other guys are doing as well. This is how you learn. I'm not just playing my game. You observe how everybody is chipping and what techniques they are using.

So you've got to be a little bit more alert than a tournament I played ten times already where you know where you used to be a kid making up-and-down shots you can't avoid, you have to avoid, and when you play the first time, the practice rounds are more important to get familiar with the whole area.

Q. How would you say the Senior Tour compares with your previous experience as far as competition and preparation?

ALEX CEJKA: Compared to other tours? Well, you know, compared like to the PGA TOUR right now, the game changed the last couple of years. So many young players, so many great players, they all are so long, hit it 330 yards. It totally changed the game on the PGA TOUR the last three years.

So when I played the last 1 1/2 years, I was struggling with it. I wasn't as long anymore, not as good. So when I made the transition on to the Champions Tour, suddenly I'm playing with guys who are my distance and make sometimes mistakes as well. So that was easier to take mentally than playing against a 23-year-old who like outplays you even on a bad day.

So that's the only difference, and it's very rare that you have a sport where you turn 50, and you can still compete for great championships. There's no other sport like this. When I started golf, you don't think 30, 40 years, you know, it's going to be that you can play for major championships when you're 50 or 65 like Bernhard or 64.

So you know, that's the only difference. But I'm glad I made that transition to the Champions Tour. That's a great tour, and I hope I can enjoy many more years.

Q. Knowing this tournament comes back every other year, have you talked to anybody?

ALEX CEJKA: You mean coming back here? Not really. I just talked because I got paired last year with Paul Broadhurst. He is one of the past champions here. He told me it's a really difficult course. I didn't even know in America where this place it. When it started, you don't know where the tournament is the next year. You focus on that season.

But after being here today, nobody's described it like what I've seen so far. You know what I mean, it's a great experience and I've only been here for a couple of hours, and I haven't seen the golf course yet. They have all told me it's a great track, it's a tough track and that's the only thing.

Q. Are you good friends with Bernhard, and are you amazed he is still playing as well as he is?

ALEX CEJKA: I'm amazed. It's incredible. You have to add to it, he's still a grinder. He still grinds like he's 25 years old. I don't know where he takes the courage, the passion, or whatever it is after so many years. I know things got to hurt the way he does it. He's the first on the driving range and the last guy to leave, every tournament. It's not easy when you're 65. He's been always a great player.

What he's been achieving on The European Tour in the 1980s, on the PGA TOUR, on the Champions Tour, winning everywhere in the world, it's fascinating. I don't know anybody who has more trophies; I went a couple months ago to his place, and it's mind-blowing that in every corner, there is three, four trophies many where laying around, you know what I mean. Normally players have three, five, ten trophies at home. But if you see somebody who has a hundred trophies, it's just incredible that he did it all the way to 65. It's just incredible.

Q. How much are you looking forward to defend your title?

ALEX CEJKA: I'm looking forward to defend, but you have different expectations. The first one is never easy to win, but when you win, you're excited and everything. Things change. Your golf changes, your goals changes. You come to a great place and you hope that your game is great because you've got to beat so many great players, and there is more pressure. You have more stuff, more media doing this, more focus and you get paired with better players in the beginning.

So there is a little bit of pressure there. I'm excited. On the other hand, I'm a little bit nervous, too, because it's not easy to defend a title. There's not many tournaments around the world where the guy successfully defended the tournament. So it's going to be a great challenge and I'm really looking forward to it.

Q. As a two-time Major Champion in 2021, what's your outlook for 2022?

ALEX CEJKA: So last year, I was really healthy, I played great. My head was phenomenal. I was really feeling confident.

End of last year, I got a little bit hurt, that worried me a little bit. I have it under control now but I had to talk a couple of weeks off. So my winter preparation wasn't as great, what I'm normally used to or what I would like it to be. So my beginning of the season was a little bit slower than I expected playing-wise, results-wise.

But I'm heading in the right direction, and I'm excited. Ready for a lot of tournaments for the season. There's still a lot of tournaments that I can play, not only on the Champions Tour, but I think I'm going to play one or two on The European Tour plus a couple on the PGA TOUR. So a schedule is there. I have a lot of tournaments and I'm really looking forward to playing great in the summer. I'm more a summer player than like a starter or a finisher.

Q. How will you approach this tournament as defending champion?

ALEX CEJKA: It's a good question. It's a new venue, so I'd like to have a lot more practice rounds than I normally take. Hopefully if I can find one or two days, I would like to come here before and just play without my colleagues or anybody. So I think that would help me. I'm really excited, and as I said, a lot of practice rounds, and hopefully I can pull shots off exactly how I want. You can have strategy. You can have a game plan but if you don't execute, then your game plan is not going to help.

JULIUS MASON: Thank you for joining us.