Two-fer win nets $1,528,000 paycheck
Stewart Cink set a goal at the beginning of his second full season on the PGA Tour Champions to win the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race.
On Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Country Club, it became mission accomplished for Cink when he tapped in a par putt on the final hole to secure the Charles Schwab Championship and sew up the Charles Schwab Cup.
Cink’s routine par on the final hole capped a 20-under-par 264 performance to edge pesky Steven Alker by two shots. Cink, who opened with a 64, closed with a 67 after overcoming a one-shot deficit entering the final round.
Five players had a chance to win the Schwab Cup coming into the final tournament of the season. Cink, who had two wins before arriving in Phoenix, was third in the standings and was aware that only a win would elevate him past Alker and Miguel Angel Jimenez. Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera also were in the mix for the overall title.
Jimenez, who won four times in 2025, never was a factor, but Cink and Alker battled head-to-head over the weekend’s 36 holes before the former Florence resident surged ahead by three shots after a birdie on No. 12 combined with Alker’s three-putt bogey.
Alker put pressure on the 52-year-old Cink with a trio of birdies down the stretch and was one back when his chances ended as he flared a 5-wood into a greenside pond from 223 yards on the par-5 finishing hole. Cink, who drove into the right rough, played a safe shot into the fairway and wedged onto the green. His two-putt par secured both titles and a nice payday – $1 million for winning the Schwab Cup and $528,000 for the tournament win.
‘Sometimes you have to take a chance’
‘“In golf, verbalizing your goals is not always a safe thing to do,” Cink said. “I’ve been burned by it in the past. But this year I thought it would be a good motivator for me, so I went ahead and put it out there and let everybody know how I feel and go after it. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.”
Cink won The Insperity and the Ally Challenge earlier in the season and had 13 top-10 finishes ahead of his arrival at Phoenix Country Club.
“I felt like I was playing well coming in, but I knew I had to win,” he said. “I controlled my own destiny in a way, and I am super proud of the way I played this week.”
Phoenix CC is a narrow, old-school kind of layout and Cink wasn’t very accurate with his driver, but it didn’t matter. He simply overpowered the golf course even though he wasn’t hitting fairways. He didn’t hit his first fairway Sunday until the ninth hole.
Cink called Phoenix “his second or third home” given that his grandparents and an aunt and uncle live there.
“It’s great to be in the desert without having to worry about desert on both sides of your tee balls,” he joked. “I don’t care if I miss a few fairways. I was freed up and hitting the heck out of the ball and letting it fly. If it goes in the rough, it goes in the rough. We play it.”
Cink said he enjoyed his weekend battle with Alker, who was not a known commodity until he arrived on the Champions Tour and began racking up win after win. In four previous Schwab Championships at Phoenix CC, Alker has never finished lower than third and has one win.
‘This week it just came down to basically him or me’
“He’s just an incredible competitor,” Cink said. “What he’s done since he turned 50 and started playing out here on the PGA Tour Champions has been just remarkable. He’s so consistent and a proven winner. He always is in the hunt.
“This week it just came down to basically him or me. It was clear late in the tournament that we were not just playing for the tournament, we were playing for the Charles Schwab Cup. It was tough to not make it a match play thing, but he’s just a great guy to play against and he will definitely bring the best out of all of us.”
When the dust settled Sunday, Cink was the guy hoisting a pair of trophies and doing the celebrating.
“I had a little adversity this week, but I came through it,” he said. “I’m very proud of setting a goal and going after it, not backing down or giving an inch.”
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
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Featured image Stewart Cink courtesy of the PGA tour
