KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 25, 2022

Alex Cejka

Press Conference

Harbor Shores

JOHN DEVER: Welcome back to the 2022 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship here at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan. We are very pleased and grateful to be joined by our defending champion, Alex Cejka.

Alex thank you for finding us and staying dry for a few minutes here with us.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, thank you.

JOHN DEVER: Let's talk about last week real quick. What a unique feature, you win a championship at Southern Hills last year and get to go back and play at the same golf course which doesn't happen with this championship very often. How nice was it for you to be back at the site of where you made such a mark last year?

ALEX CEJKA: Well, I had good vibes. I arrived there, it was great weather. It's a beautiful golf course. I have great memories. Obviously I knew, it's a different feel, it's going to be a different golf course playing 7,600, whatever, but it was nice to see some hold friends, familiar faces.

I didn't particularly play well for that long golf course. I didn't drive it well. I was struggling a little bit. We had tough conditions but overall it was a fabulous week. I was super happy to be back.

It was a little torture for me the way I played golf last week. Totally different than a year ago where I was striping the ball, making every putt. This is what sport is all about. You know, now the week was over and now we are coming here so I'm looking forward for another great week.

JOHN DEVER: You are here and you're back to your regular job if you will on the PGA Tour Champions. Your week began, in essence, last night, holding the Champions Dinner. Talk about your experience putting that together and how your evening went last night.

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, I think it went really well. I was a little bit nervous. You know, when you host something for the first time and do something for the first time, you don't know who is coming, how the food is going to be everything and but it turned out really great. The food was amazing. I was serving a schnitzel, a German traditional meal, and it was really great. So I'm happy I was able to host it.

JOHN DEVER: And, can I ask, you got into the theme of the evening, German, and you had a native outfit on of sorts.

ALEX CEJKA: Yes, everybody is coming in a jacket, so I thought I've got to mix it up a little bit and I threw on the old Lederhosen, like an Oktoberfest outfit. I think it's very unique. Lederhosen, and it was great, yeah.

Q. You spent a number of years on the PGA Tour, fighting late in the year to keep a card you and started on this tour trying to get status, and all of a sudden you reel off victories in two majors. What's it like to have that security?

ALEX CEJKA: Now, it's great. As you said, I turned 50, I didn't have much status. So you're a little bit worried because you don't know how long you're going to play, when you can tee it up, I somehow did it. I somehow qualified, won a tournament at the Tradition, what gave me the chance to play the PGA, the Senior PGA a couple weeks later. And I saw the main pressure was gone because I knew I had one and I knew I could play a little out here, at least for one or two years.

So it was great. The pressure is gone, but it's still tough competition here. No matter what week you play, it's just great players, Hall of Famers, major champions. The competition is really tough. So you've got to really play great game to contend out there. And you know, I'm just happy I'm in a way like this where I can still keep playing, where I can enter whenever I want. So right now it's a great feeling.

Q. Freedom in it, right?

ALEX CEJKA: It's freedom. It frees up a lot of things, yes.

Q. Couple random ones. The trophy for the Senior PGA is massive. Talk about what it was like to lift that up, the Alfred S. Bourne Trophy?

ALEX CEJKA: Well, I didn't even expect it to be that heavy. You still have adrenaline by winning and everything. It's surreal, you don't believe it.

You know, then they tell you you can lift it, and then I was really shocked how heavy it is. I was just going to go and pick it up. I was like, whoa, whoa. It's really heavy but you know in that moment, even if it's 50 pounds heavy, I just lift it and you hold it as long as you can, yes. But it was an incredible feeling, yes. The heaviest trophy I've ever gotten.

Q. And this course here, there's a lot of different terrain on this course, a lot of different features, Jack Nicklaus course. Talk about how you have to navigate yourself around this course and how you have to be prepared for what it throws at you?

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, it's tricky. I played now a couple times yesterday in a warmer weather. I played it before in really cold and windy conditions.

So it's really -- the course is already tricky, challenging around the greens when you don't hit like really great shots, and it's almost impossible over all those tiers to make two putts when you have an 80-footer over three ridges. It's tricky.

But it all depends on the weather, what we are getting in the tournament. I'm pretty sure they are maybe, if the weather is really bad, move up a couple tees. Maybe be a little bit more generous with the pin positions. That would be nice.

But you've still got to play -- you've got to execute your shots here. There is one hole where you can take a breather like, oh, let me just punch a 4-iron down there, hit it on the green, make easy two-putts. It's just tricky and you need like everything here in the bag to, in the end to be up there on the leaderboard.

Q. You talked last year in that great run of play how well you drove it. Are you close to that now or feel close to that?

ALEX CEJKA: I'm close. I don't know what happened last year in that -- in those two months. I think I've never had this before. I was just -- everything was like a machine. I drove it long. I drove it straight. There was no fear. Even if the fairways were really narrow, I just hit it well and putted well.

I think that was my best two months in -- in my career, like playing-wise. I'm close. I'm hitting it well. I've been playing pretty decent all year long. I maybe don't have the success or the results as -- as my game is, but you know, I'm still believing. I'm still positive. There's still a lot of tournaments to come.

So you know, every week is a new week. It's a new fresh start. Last weekend I was 11-over par and now on Thursday I'm back to even starting a new tournament. So it's a great feeling, yes.

JOHN DEVER: We have some special guests here to address you. We have Annabel, is our grand prize winner, and her sister, Sophie, let's start with them, and then we'll get to Heidi and Hudson. I'll introduce them in a moment.

Annabel, do you have a question for Alex?

Q. Have you ever got a hole-in-one?

ALEX CEJKA: Yes. Not that many. I think I have -- well, not that many, I think it's five. But one as an amateur and four in tournaments but never -- always on the wrong holes, so never won a prize. But it's a great feeling to have a hole-in-one. I mean, most of the shots, I must even admit were not perfect shots. They just bounced somewhere and then start rolling and go into the hole.

JOHN DEVER: When was your most recent ace?

ALEX CEJKA: I think most recent one was at the Shriners, I think three years ago at the Shriners in Las Vegas on the 17th hole I think.

JOHN DEVER: You're kind of due. Let's see what happens. Let's go to our other winners, Heidi and Hudson.

Do you have a question for Alex?

Q. What is your favorite club?

ALEX CEJKA: I like to chip a lot around the green, so like the 52, like a sand wedge, and I do most of the chipping and bunker shots with my sand wedge, so that's my favorite club I use. Almost every time a miss the green, I'm chipping with a sand wedge.

Q. How often did you practice as a kid?

ALEX CEJKA: As much as I could. Obviously you still go to school, so you start practicing till it's dark. When I turned professional, you have to practice every day. Because there's so many great kids and great young players who want to be professionals and who want to pray great and they all practice until it gets dark.

So as much as you can, you've got to have fun but you've got to practice on a daily basis. It doesn't matter if it's raining, if it's 30 degrees, 90 degrees, you've just got to keep practicing to be good.

Q. How many fish did you catch this morning?

ALEX CEJKA: I didn't fish this morning. I went fishing the other day and -- I guess I'm a bad fisherman, I didn't catch anything. I didn't find the right spot. I was in the river close to the marina. I think if you go to a little pond you can catch some bass but so far this week I haven't caught anything yet.