Healthier Cejka trying to best boyhood idol at PLAYERS
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- He's not 100 percent, but Alex Cejka can feel the fingers in his hand now, so that's a good sign.
For much of the last month, though, the German had tried to play through a pinched nerve in his neck. His right arm was numb, too -- not a good thing for a golfer -- but last week's epidural injection of cortisone appears to have done the trick.
Cejka has put together his best two rounds of the year, seizing the lead at THE PLAYERS Championship with Friday's 67. He's 11 under and four strokes ahead of his nearest competitors, Kevin Na and Masters champion Angel Cabrera.
"I'm glad the numbers are going this way," Cejka said. "... When the numbness was there, I didn't see any doctors, so I was a little bit worried, so I think my focus was a little bit more on the injury than on the golf course.
"I continued my good game to here, to this week, and the feeling is better. I can see it on the greens and the short game, so we'll see what happens in the next two days."
Cejka's most recent injury is related to surgery last August to fuse the C5 and C6 vertebrae in his neck. He took a mere two months off before playing -- and missing the cut -- in the final two Fall Series events, along with the OMEGA Mission Hills World Cup.
Cejka now has a titanium plate and some cadaver bone in his neck. He does a special set of exercises and ices his neck at least twice a day. Practice sessions are limited, which is hard for a guy used to playing more than 30 events a year.
"I like to hit a lot of balls, so it's tough to just hit one bucket and relax, but I think it's what I have to do the next couple weeks," Cejka said.
At least he hasn't lost his sense of humor. When someone asked the 38-year-old if the doctors had to go in and loosen any of the screws on the plate they installed after his fingers began to tingle several weeks ago, Cejka shrugged.
"It's easy, they give me a screwdriver, I can just adjust it between holes," he said, laughing. "No, the plate is well. I did a lot of X rays and (an) MRI, as well. It was just I think I just came too early back to playing."
Doctors have told Cejka that all nerves heal differently so it may take weeks, maybe months before he is completely healed. As long as he keeps playing like he did on Friday, though, Cejka will be a happy man.
Cejka teed off No. 1 in the second group of the day in a two-ball with his Nevada neighbor, Kevin Na. The two live 10 minutes away from each other in Las Vegas, and they played Friday like they'd hit the jackpot.
Cejka made six birdies in his first 11 holes to move into a five-stroke advantage, although he later gave one back when he couldn't get up and down from the greenside bunker at the 14th hole. Na started further back but was equally red-hot with six birdies in his first 12 holes on the way to the day's low round of 65.
"We were making fun of each other," Na said. "It's like, man, the hole is too big. It's like, come on, you made it. Another putt? Are you kidding me? And we had a great time out there. And that was I think the reason why we both played well."
Cejka agreed. With the early start, other marquee groups -- like the one with world No. 2 Phil Mickelson -- also on the course, he said it felt almost like a Monday practice round. Not until the twosome approached the exciting finishing holes did the crowds pick up.
"I had a really good tee time, no wind really at all this morning, and ... we both were playing well," Cejka said. "We were just cruising basically, and the first 11, 12 holes I really played well and had a couple good shots and a couple good putts. Made a stupid bogey, I think, on 15, but that's golf, and that's the golf course here."
Cejka settled in Las Vegas after a stint in south Florida where he found the weather too humid, and he didn't like the frequent thunderstorms. That was nothing, though, compared to the journey he and his father made to escape the Communists in their native Czechoslovakia.
Cejka was 9-years-old at the time, too young to really understand the magnitude of the life-changing undertaking. The two fled on foot, and sometimes rode their bikes or took a train. They even had to swim across the Rhine River.
"For me, it was a vacation, so for me it was a smooth ride," he said. "Of course probably my dad was nervous as hell just leaving everything behind, taking the son and a little backpack and just (leaving) through three or four countries into the west."
The Cejkas eventually settled in Frankfurt, which is where the youngster had his first golf lessons. He idolized Bernhard Langer and skipped school to watch the two-time Masters champ play in local pro-ams.
Cejka remembers one of those, in particular. Langer had come to play at Frankfurt Niederrad shortly after winning his first Masters. It was pouring rain, but an enthralled Cejka followed Langer for all 18 holes.
"I remember the first time I approached him on No. 9," Cejka said. "It's a long par 4. The amateurs are like 50 yards ahead hiding in the trees with their umbrellas, and he goes on the tee, everything is like wet, and he takes his rain jacket off, and I'm like, ... 'Mr. Langer, can I hold your jacket?' And he just looked at me and threw it in the water on the tee.
"For a young kid, this is your hero, you want to touch something, whatever. So I followed him 18 holes, he shot like a 1 under par. After the round, I told him, 'Great round.' I expected that I'd get a ball or something. Nothing, he just walked past me. That's not typical Bernhard Langer; everybody knows he's a nice guy."
Several years later Cejka recounted the incident when he played with Langer in a tournament. The former Ryder Cup captain didn't remember it, and even now, Cejka is quick to give his idol, and now his friend, a pass.
"Maybe he didn't trust me. I had shorts, I had a ripped tee shirt. I looked like I don't know (what)," he said with a smile.
The methodical Langer never won THE PLAYERS, as Cejka is threatening to do, but he did post two seconds and a third in 23 appearances. He also won on another Pete Dye golf course at Hilton Head where Cejka tied for 13th two weeks ago.
"I think all of us play kind of that game from A to B," said Cejka, who tied for 12th at THE PLAYERS in 2005. "I mean, course management is important, not only out here but every week where we play.
"He was one of the best in that department, and I think we all tried to do the same things we all know. If we miss the greens, it's better to miss it left than right if we make a bad shot. I think all of us are kind of playing this kind of game."
And it's serving Cejka well this week.
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