In this week’s player blog presented by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Ondrej Lieser talks about growing up as a budding golfer in the Czech Republic and a 2020 full of firsts on the Challenge Tour.
My father had a business meeting at a golf course when I was about nine years old. I went with him, grabbed a club and that’s where I discovered golf. It wasn’t the best of starts - I tried to hit a big shot, spun around after the shot, missed the ball. But that was it, I was hooked. I started to get better over time. I was playing a lot of different sports as well but I decided I would pursue golf as my number one sport when I was about 15.
I just love how individual golf is. It’s just up to you. In any other sport, especially team sports, you need to have other players playing well but in golf, it’s just you. When you make a mistake, it’s your fault, nobody else’s. I was always hard on myself. I was always putting pressure on myself as I was the one who was making the mistake. That’s what I love about it. I don’t complain about anybody else.
Growing up in Prague, the weather isn’t perfect all-year round to play golf, so we used to play in an indoor facility on simulators. We played some amazing golf courses – like Valderrama – on the simulator and for me, that was just normal. I never made the decision to travel to Spain or the USA to go and play golf, I just got to work with the simulator instead. I was just doing what I knew, which was playing for six or seven months of the year, and for the rest, we were indoors.
I turned professional in 2012 after I played in the World Amateur Teams Championship in Turkey, and I knew that was going to be my last amateur event. The week after was the Challenge Tour event at my home club at Golf & Spa Kunětická Hora. I made the decision to change my status from amateur to professional on the flight back home to Prague and I played in that event as a pro for the first time. It had been coming all year, because I had a good season as an amateur, so I felt ready. I had already made it through the First Stage of Qualifying School as an amateur, so I just decided to turn pro. I then got through Second Stage but missed the cut at Final Stage.
Looking back at the years between turning pro and meeting my wife, I would normally use a swear word to describe them, but let’s just say it was a fight. It was a fight money-wise. It was a fight in my head because I wasn’t enjoying playing golf. That kicked me where it hurt, because I’ve always loved this game and I started to fall out of love with it. I was enjoying my practice and playing for fun, but when I stepped on the first tee of a tournament, I wasn’t feeling good. I made a decision in the middle of the season and I took the rest of the season out, for around five months. I then started feeling better, went back home and I won two professional Czech events, met my wife in the same period and it all started changing.
I just couldn’t perform on the bigger stages, and I’ve said it many times, but it all changed when I met my wife four years ago. My life just turned around. She’s on the same mental level as I am, and she tells it like it is. She wouldn’t say: “It doesn’t matter, Ondrej, everything will be okay”, she tells the truth, which is what I need. I would say my life, from a family perspective, is the maximum it can be. I have a beautiful daughter, I have a beautiful wife and now it’s time for golf.
I saw guys like Sami Välimäki winning in Oman last year, Hurly Long winning on the Challenge Tour in Italy. So I was thinking to myself “you were in the top five, playing the same golf as these guys on the Pro Golf Tour” and I knew I could make it. The Pro Golf Tour prepared me really well for the next stage in my career. The big difference, for me, is that most of the time I played in Challenge Tour events on invites. I always felt, deep down, that I didn’t deserve to play in those events. I was on an invite, and in my mind I hadn’t earned the right to be there. When I finished in the top five on the Pro Golf Tour, it was almost like I deserved to be there and deserved to be a Challenge Tour player. That was the big difference in my mind.
Even now, I still can’t quite believe what happened on the Challenge Tour last year. I would say at least once every two weeks I am on YouTube watching the highlights of my wins – it really feels good! When I won the first event in Cádiz, I felt so comfortable with that lead in the final 18 holes. When I made a birdie on the second, I felt like it was my day. I really didn’t feel the pressure because I was playing so well during the last two days in Spain. I knew I was leading because I like to look at the leaderboard. I like to know where I am, but I just played shot-by-shot, kept trying to make birdies, because you never know what can happen. I was able to do that, and it really surprised me how strong I could be mentally. That was the first time I had ever had the lead during the final round of a Challenge Tour event, and I delivered. That was a really big thing for me. I think I was eight shots behind after the second round, so going from eight shots behind to winning by two in two rounds, that really felt good.
The win in Mallorca was much tougher because I wasn’t playing my best in the final round. After the 13th hole, because I didn’t see a leaderboard from the ninth green until the 14th, I realised I was still in the lead with six other guys. I played holes 10-14 in level par so I thought I would be at least two shots behind and but I then realised that I was still in the game. That pushed me and gave me a little bit of an adrenaline rush as well for the final few holes.
It’s hard to balance family life and golf. I wouldn’t say you need management skills, but for me, my time is precious. I’m trying to get my life on the golf course and my life with my family balanced. The decision to take a week off between my win in Cádiz and the Grand Final was already made before I won that tournament. I knew anything could happen in the first event and I told myself I would fly back home because there are double points on offer at the Grand Final and if you win it, you’re going to be close enough to make it into the top five. I played seven events last year and I was 100 per cent sure that I wouldn’t be able to perform three weeks in a row.. After that win, I wanted to keep a winning attitude. What would normally happen would be I would win the first tournament, finish around 20th the following week, then I would fly to Mallorca as the man who finished 20th in the last tournament. So instead, I won the tournament, went back home and relaxed, then went to Mallorca as a winner in my head, a winner in the last tournament I played. I had a lot of mental power to perform. I am 100 per cent sure that decision made me a winner in the last four holes in Mallorca because I know the week off helped me mentally during those last four holes.
After I finished well in the Italian Challenge, I was just happy to secure my place in the Challenge Tour Grand Final. I was really happy. I was the first guy from Czech Republic to get a top five finish on the Challenge Tour, I was the first guy from Czech to play in the Grand Final, then I was the first Czech to win, then the first Czech to win twice, then I was the first Czech to win the Road to Mallorca Rankings. There were so many firsts in the space of about three weeks. It means a lot. In the past I would watch some of my friends play in the final rounds at Albatross in the Czech Masters on the European Tour and now some of those guys are coming up to me and saying “well done on last season, really good performance”. They can finally see me. I’m not just the guy who comes from the Czech Republic, shoots 80 or 82, probably misses the cut and if he plays well, might finish 40th. Now they can see me as a proper competitor.
I really hope my success can increase the popularity of golf in the Czech Republic. The news of my victories was even in the media, not traditional golf media, but the national media. The pandemic has actually helped because golf is one of the only sports that has been allowed in the Czech
