Stanislav Matus is delighted to be back on home soil for the Czech Challenge at Golf & Spa Kunětická Hora, which includes a staggering 89 bunkers and eye-catching clusters of distinctive fairways, teeing off from June 3 – 6.
The delightful Dříteč venue, which is located east of Prague, offers European Challenge Tour players an array of tricky holes, overlooked by a 15th century castle ruin, and one of the longest courses in the Czech Republic. This event returns to the Road to Mallorca International Schedule for the first time since 2019 and Matus is exuberated to back at the course in Dříteč.
The experienced Challenge Tour player is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to be back in the Czech Republic but is also just thankful that he is back playing golf after the stop-start season in 2020.
“You’ve got to be excited just to play golf after what happened last year, its great to be back playing again,” said Matus. “I think most of the Challenge Tour players really enjoy playing these events, not only the Challenge Tour players but also the European Tour players.
“I thought it might have been at my hometown club (Prague City Golf Club) but they decided to play it here, and I am more than happy to be back on this course again especially with it being on home soil.”
“I’ve played here many times on the Czech Amateur Tour and I’ve played in a few professional tournaments here as well, which I try to play every year, and it has been a success so I hope to continue that. The course is very long and I believe it is the course with the most bunkers on it, so I’m going to try and stay out of them. The fairways are challenging and the course has large greens, but I’ve manage to shoot low scores here and I hope to continue that.”
The 32-year-old has competed in three events on the 2021 Road to Mallorca thus far and made an appearance on the European Tour at the Austrian Golf Open in April. With three consistent performances under his belt the Czech player hopes to use his good practice this year and take it into the Czech Challenge this week.
“After a long winter, it was almost six months off, I was lucky enough to get into the South African Open in December and I got into a European Tour event in Austria, so it was nice to start the season there,” he added. “It has been pretty good on the Challenge Tour so I’m just looking forward to getting off to a good start here and improve my game for next year so I can fill my head full of calm, so let’s take advantage of the home play and keep on grinding.”
Having been crowned the Road to Mallorca champion last year, he has admitted that compatriot Ondřej Lieser has had massive influence on him in making sure that he never gives up and keeps training hard.
“Ondřej is one of my best friends, we shared a room together a lot of times and seeing him succeed made me a little hungrier and it’s great for the Czech game and the Czech community,” Matus said. “We needed that. I was the first one who gained a category on the European Tour and didn’t make much noise but I think with his win on the Challenge Tour, it’s just a lot bigger and I think in terms of the amateurs as well, we are seeing a lot of them coming out of college who are Czech golfers and hopefully this victory of Ondřej as well is going to make them want to push harder.”
The Czech Challenge will begin at 7:40am local time on Thursday 3 June, with Matus teeing it up at 13:15 pm alongside highly ranked Scotsman Ewen Ferguson and Englishman Ben Jones.
