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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 7, 2009

Alex Cejka

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

CHRIS REIMER: Talk about the conditions out there today and some good scores today.
ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, it was kind of scorable if you played well. It wasn't really that windy. I don't remember in the past normally it was like more rough, and it was a little bit tougher, but I hit good tee shots today. I hit, I think, every fairway, so it's a little bit easier for you hit the fairway. You have good shots to the green. So that's the key. And obviously making the putts, it's also a big goal of mine, what I've been struggling over the past couple of years. But overall I played pretty solid and it's nice to see my name up there on the leader bore.
CHRIS REIMER: Every fairway, missed one green, is that something you felt in some of the practice rounds you were hitting the ball that solid?
ALEX CJEKA: Yeah, I've been playing kind of well the last couple of weeks. It's just -- the ball-striking is there, it's just make it score-wise, make a couple of putts, and make a couple of birdies.

Q. I think there was only two of you that are among the Top 10 right now that played in the afternoon. Are you looking forward to tomorrow morning?
ALEX CJEKA: Yeah, I have an early tee time tomorrow. I like it when I have a draw in the afternoon on Thursdays and Friday mornings, then the opposite, I don't like to wait in between the rounds that long. But it should be hopefully calm, calm weather, good greens. There are no spike marks. I'm looking forward to playing in the morning.

Q. Did the rain last night help the greens here and helped you in particular?
ALEX CJEKA: I don't know if it helped me, I'm just -- the greens are still fast and smooth. They may became a little bit slower, but they're still fast and you have to be careful what you're doing out there, especially when you have downhill, downgrain, they're pretty slick.

Q. Were you surprised at all at kind of how scorable it's been, a lot of red numbers out there. Did you notice on the practice rounds and think a lot of green lights out here this week?
ALEX CJEKA: Yeah, as I said earlier, what I remember in the past there was more rough. When you missed the rough I always had a bad lie in this Bermudagrass. It's tough to hit the greens. But I played with Kevin Na. He hit it a couple of times just off the fairway into the rough, and he was still able to hit it on to the greens. So that makes it a little bit easier.

Q. It's down, I think, a quarter inch or so from last year. There seems to be a little bit of a trend. Last week Wachovia the rough was down. The Masters, the conditions were scorable. Are you noticing anything out there to try to make it more scorable?
ALEX CJEKA: I don't want to say they're trying to make it easy. They say these guys are good. But it's still -- it doesn't matter how tough the golf course is, you always have a couple of guys get really hot that week and you see a couple of low numbers. It was pretty calm today. Wait until it's blowing 30 miles an hour, here, and you're not going to have 6-, 7-, 8-under. It's been playing maybe a little bit easier in the last couple of weeks. But you still have to play well to shoot low numbers if you want to be up there.

Q. Fair to say that with the wind down like it sort of was today, you can attack it much more, because some of the changes and the rough being down, fair to say that, that you can kind of go after it a little bit more?
ALEX CJEKA: A little bit. I will say there were a couple of pin positions even without the wind today or not as much wind, it was tricky. So there were a lot of holes where I really went just for the middle of a green to the safe side and was hoping to have a 30-footer and hoping to make it. I really wasn't playing that aggressive today at certain pins, even at the angles I had. Maybe I was on the fairway, but wasn't that easy a shot. So, again, it was a little bit scorable because the wind, I think, too.

Q. How far back do we have to go to find a round of 66 or better for you?
ALEX CJEKA: How far back?

Q. Yes. When is the last time?
ALEX CJEKA: Hilton Head first round, 64 or something, I was leading a couple of weeks ago, two weeks, three weeks ago.
CHRIS REIMER: You had a series of maybe not Top-10s, but right around 10 to 15th this year, you've been playing pretty solidly.
ALEX CJEKA: I've been struggling a little bit with a couple of injuries, even last week I had a minor surgery in San Diego, again, concerning my neck. But I'm feeling not 100 percent but I'm ready to play.

Q. Can you go through some of the -- can you go over any of the other injuries?
ALEX CJEKA: It's basically the same thing, I had surgery end of last year and I think I maybe started too early to come back and hit balls. They told me six, seven, eight months' rest and I was out there four weeks later hitting balls already and playing the World Cup in China just a couple of weeks after the surgery.
I had a problem a couple of weeks ago in The Masters week. I woke up and I had a numb arm. I had a pinched nerve again. It just shot in my arm. So the last couple of weeks it was really, really bad. And last week I had to get like an epidural shot. It's getting a little bit better. The numbness is gone for most of it, but not a hundred percent. It can take two weeks, two months, they don't know. The nerve is healing not so easy.

Q. You play through it?
ALEX CJEKA: I'm going to play through. I'm going to play through. I'm good enough to play. I feel maybe that's where I play maybe a little bit better because I have other thoughts in my mind and I'm not focusing about the water, the rough or whatever. And they always say beware of the injured golfer. So I'm maybe not thinking too much of it. I'm feeling good, I'm maybe a little bit handicapped, but I'm playing well, feeling good and we'll see.
CHRIS REIMER: A lot of the guys do the damage on the par-5s out here. You played the par-5s at even par, you had three 2's on your score card, good birdies on 8 and 17.
ALEX CJEKA: Yeah, on the par-3s, I hit really good shots and had really short birdie putts.
The par-5s I've been struggling. Most of them are not reachable for me, anyway. And like on 11 it was reachable, but I pushed it too much and I hit -- I hit it in the water.
So 16 I birdied, I hit it just pin-high left.
But No. 2 I didn't get it up-and-down from the left-hand side.
And 9 is -- that's a tough one. I didn't really hit a good third shot in.
But overall a couple of birdies I made were really like a couple close ones. The rest were like 15, 20 feet.

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