INVITED CELEBRITY CLASSIC

April 21, 2023

Alex Cejka

Las Colinas Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Just overall experience of how today went for you, what was working, and how does this course fit your game?

ALEX CEJKA: It was tricky out there. The course is playing great. There's a couple patchy spots, but with preferred lies you want to hit a lot of fairways. I drove it well. I hit a lot of good fairways, and it gave me a lot of opportunities for birdies. Made a couple good putts in the beginning and was 3-, 4-under like on the front nine. That helps.

The front nine for me was a little bit trickier. I didn't hit that many good shots. Had to make a couple up-and-downs. But I managed to get in 5-under, so I'm really pleased with the first round.

Q. This format is definitely different. We added celebrities to play with you guys this week. What's that experience like for you?

ALEX CEJKA: Yeah, I've been playing 20 years in Pebble Beach in the AT&T, so I know that format, and I like it. It doesn't matter if you play twosome, three some or foursome. All those guys are mostly great players. It was a lot of fun playing with two Hall-of-Famers right there. They played pretty good.

I think we all had a great day.

Q. You're not the first person to come in and say it was tricky. What was tricky to you?

ALEX CEJKA: It's the wind. You've got to start it right of the green because the wind is 50 miles per hour right to left, so it's not what I like to visualize. I'm going at the pin when there is no wind and I'm trying to hit a good shot, but now in these conditions you want to be at the right side or the left side, depends how the wind is blowing, depends where the pin is.

So I have to shape the ball a little bit today in both directions. That is the tricky part. Part of us have like one pattern where you hit it right to left or left to right, but I really had to shape it left to right and right to left.

I tell you, the holes into the wind are pretty challenging.

I'm really pleased. I really played well. I hit a lot of good shots, and I made a lot of good putts. I had a couple six-footers I want to say, two, three six-footers for par that I made that kept my momentum going. You miss one or two of those, you're back to 1-under instead of being 3- or 4-under, so that was the key.

But with the wind blowing 10 to 20 miles an hour, every course is tricky.