Cejka could rue missed points
Alex Cejka, one of the stars of the Seve Trophy this weekend with four points out of five, could miss out on a Ryder Cup debut next year because he failed to play 11 events on the European tour this season.
The German, fourth in the USPGA championship in August, resigned his membership to concentrate on the US Tour this year.
But although he intends rejoining next season he has not been eligible for Ryder Cup points since qualifying started two months ago and that may end up costing him a place in Bernhard Langer’s team.
“It’s a shame that this situation arises in the first place,” said Colin Montgomerie, one of Cejka’s victims at El Saler.
“We want our strongest team to go to America next year and I think he is certainly in the top 12 at the moment. Missing out on points might hurt him and it might hurt us.”
The 32-year-old, 41st on the world rankings, has played in two counting events so far, finishing 13th in the German Masters and 12th in the American Express world championship.
Both were big money tournaments and he would have collected 123,939 cup points. But he remains on nothing until becoming a member again.
“I would suggest he does that as soon as he can,” added Montgomerie, who currently lies 27th in the points table with 125,025.
Only the top five in that table qualify automatically, along with five in another table based on world ranking points earned during the year. But Cejka has missed out on those as well.
“It could be critical,” said his manager Richard Rayment.
Cejka, representing Germany in the World Cup this week, himself commented: “My priority this year was doing as well as I could in America. I’ve got a long career ahead of me – and the Ryder Cup is one of my goals.”
He played only seven Order of Merit events rather than the required 11, yet did so well that he would have finished 30th on the money list if his name had not been removed.
In the States Cejka earned over a million dollars in his rookie season, coming 60th on their money list.
He was top European at the USPGA and at the Accenture world match play in California in February beat Montgomerie and Angel Cabrera before losing on the last to eventual runner-up David Toms – America’s top-scorer at The Belfry last year.
If he fails to qualify his former World Cup partner Langer could name him as one of his two wild cards, but there may well be hot competition for those.
