Cejka traveled complicated road to TPC
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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The details are a bit fuzzy, lost in the haze of time and travel. Alex Cejka bounces all over the world playing golf for a living, and although his escape from communism some three decades ago was but a child's journey back then, it serves to offer a healthy dose of perspective.
Cejka, 38, has 11 international golf victories. Although he has never won on the PGA Tour, where he has played full time since 2003, he nonetheless has pocketed more than $5.5 million in earnings. That's a lot of korunas.
And this weekend presents the opportunity to earn several million of them.
Cejka's rounds of 66-67 at the TPC Sawgrass put him at 11 under par after 36 holes and gave him a 4-shot lead.
It's a pretty lofty position for a guy who, along with his father, escaped his home country -- now called the Czech Republic -- and fled to Yugoslavia, Italy and Switzerland before settling in Germany.
Not that Cejka thought it was any big deal.
"I was too young to understand what was going on," Cejka said. "My dad told nobody what he was going. I was 9 years old. For me, it was a vacation, a smooth ride.
"Of course, probably my dad was nervous as hell just leaving everything behind, taking the son and a little backpack and just weave through three or four countries into the West."
Cejka and his father traveled by foot, by bike, by train -- and by water. From Switzerland, he and his father swam across the Rhine River into Germany.
And that is where he took up golf. There might not be a more unlikely path to the PGA Tour.
From a Communist country to one that barely has a golf pedigree to the biggest stage in the game.
Luckily for Cejka, he began to get seriously interested in golf around the time Germany's Bernhard Langer was winning the 1985 Masters.
"Of course in Europe he won three, four, five tournaments every year," Cejka recalled. "He came to play the German Open in Frankfurt every year back then in the mid-80s, and of course I watched him. I skipped school and I watched him in pro-ams, and he was my inspiration.
The Players Championship Leaderboard
1. Cejka (-11)
2. Poulter (-9)
T-3. Mallinger (-7)
T-3. Stenson (-7)
T-3. Toms (-7)
T-3. Na (-7)
T-3. Cabrera (-7)
T-3. Dufner (-7)
• Complete scores
"He was the only guy who was on the tour. The only German guy who won tournaments. The only German who won a major. That was inspiration, and I watched him wherever I could.
"We had two, three tournaments in Germany on the European Tour, and I watched them all, from [Jose Maria] Olazabal, from [Seve] Ballesteros, you name all these names. That's what inspired me to become a pro."
Cejka, who won the 1990 Czech Open and whose biggest victory came at the 1995 Volvo Masters -- the year he won three times and finished sixth on the European Tour's Order of Merit -- remembered the first time he got to play with Langer in a practice round.
"I was shaking on the first hole of a Monday practice round," he said. "But he was really nice, and that fell off me pretty quickly."
Langer won two Masters and was part of the Big Five in Europe, where he won 42 times, was a Ryder Cup stalwart and captained the European team to victory over the United States in 2004. He now plays on the Champions Tour and remains a huge figure in Germany.
That remains the case for someone such as Martin Kaymer, 24, an up-and-coming German player who has a residence in Scottsdale, Ariz., and is trying to earn his PGA Tour card for 2010. Kaymer, who won the Abu Dhabi Championship last year, is ranked 23rd in the world and shot 71-73 at The Players to make the cut on the number.
Although he credits Langer as the player who still influences most young German players, Kaymer looks to Cejka for a different kind of inspiration.
"I just like his attitude," Kaymer said. "He's very relaxed. He's a little laid-back, a little different than Bernhard. The combination of them would be awesome, because he is very relaxed. Bernhard is a little more reserved. But don't take that the wrong way. He is very reserved. And Alex is very relaxed and laid-back. I just like his attitude."
Cejka is overcoming even more immediate obstacles to be in the lead this week. He suffered a neck injury during last year's British Open that led to surgery and a three-month break from competition.
Still not completely recovered, Cejka last week had an epidural for the pinched nerve in his neck that caused numbness in his hands. "It's still not 100 percent, but I feel my hand, so that's a good sign," he quipped.
Amazingly, Cejka managed to post those back-to-back scores in the 60s, which at one point gave him a 4-shot lead over the field.
Kaymer said he is surprised that Cejka has never won on the PGA Tour, but his best finishes were a second in 2004 at the International and a tie for second in 2003 at the B.C. Open. Last year, he had four top-10 finishes but none in the top three.
So this is some unfamiliar territory for Cejka, who has plenty of time to think about it before his afternoon tee time Saturday.
Then again, he can think back to some more treacherous times.
"For me, it was just a little trip, I guess," said Cejka, talking about his family's journey to freedom. "But I think for my father, it was quite scary. It wasn't that easy to flee from a Communist country."
Probably not.
Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
