His domination of senior circuit continues
Alabama Golf News Editor
Right now, the PGA Tour Champions is Stewart Cink’s personal playground and he’s just letting everybody else play in it.
Cink, the former Florence resident, won for the third time in six starts this season Sunday, firing a course-record 9-under 63 to win the Senior PGA Championship at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, by six shots over tour rookie Ben Crane. His 269 total (19-under) was the second-lowest score in tournament history. Only Sam Snead’s 20-under in 1973 is better.
It’s the first major championship victory on the Champions Tour for Cink, who is in his third year on the tour. He started the final round in a four-way tie for second place and one shot out of Keith Horne’s lead. Cink surged to the lead with an eagle-birdie-birdie stretch on the final three holes of the front nine, and no one made a move on the final nine.
It’s the second major championship of his 30-year professional career. He won the Open Championship in 2009 over Tom Watson. And while it has been 17 years since he hoisted the Claret Jug, Cink said the feeling of winning the Senior PGA Championship and lifting the Alfred S. Bourne Cup is equal to that of the Open.
‘I’m probably more in control now than I was then’
“It’s hard to compare the two. My body felt a little different then because I was 36, and now I’m 52, but the level of satisfaction and validation feels the same,” he said. “I actually feel like I’m probably more in control now than I was then. I feel like I’m a more complete player now than I was that year. You know, I consider myself a student of the game. I love pursuing golf, just trying to squeeze every little bit of it that I can out of it. It’s a maddening and rewarding and awesome game all at the same time. Days like today makes me want to get up early in the morning and go and work hard again. It just felt so good out there today. I almost didn’t want it to end.”
Winning at The Concession was “satisfying,” he said.
“It’s a grueling golf course to compete over four days,” he said. “It’s hot. The golf course is in incredible shape, but it really is testing out there. You don’t have to veer very far off to find trouble. It’s tiring, but in the end, rewarding. I did a good job staying in the present, and that’s probably one of the things I look back on and being the most proud of is that I was patient, patient and present, really this week.”
It was the second time this season that Cink shot 63. His low round is 62 at the Hoag Classic earlier this season.
Cink credited two keys to his low round Sunday – a text from his son Reagan on Saturday night and a short putting session after the third round. The gist of the text from Reagan, who spent time as his caddie in the final two years of his time on the PGA Tour, was “bludgeon this place.”
Stewart Cink: A revelation on the practice green
“He just said ‘Just bludgeon it and bludgeon it and bludgeon it until it yields.’” Cink said. “That’s what you have to do out here. You have to rep your game plan and your executing and just keep on doing it until a birdie happens or an eagle happens. Then maybe a bogey happens, but you’ve just got to keep on bludgeoning. I was already thinking about it, but he reminded me.”
Although he was only one shot back going into the final round, Cink’s putting wasn’t up to his usual standard. After Saturday’s round, he spent a little time on the practice green just to ensure that his stroke was fine.
“I wasn’t going to the practice green to find something, but I noticed, we analyzed — we learn and grow by analyzing what’s happened in the recent past, and I was missing a lot of my putts low,” Cink said. “I was under-reading some of the break. I decided today I was going to play a little more break, and looky there, I had one of my best putting days of the last year.”
How good was Cink’s 63 in the final round? It was three shots better than anyone else in the field on a day when there were only nine rounds in the 60s. Crane, who played alongside Cink, said he wasn’t aware how far ahead his good friend was.
“I thought I was in it, and then I signed my score card and I’m, like, oh, I got beat by a mile,” Crane said. “I shot 4-under. I was 5-under going into the last hole. So I was 5-under, and he beat me by four. So that’s, like, elite golf, yeah. 9-under on this golf course, that’s doing everything well. Like, making putts, flush iron shots, correctly missing the penal areas around the green. 9-under is special around here, yeah. You’ll probably never see it again.”
With the win comes an invitation to play in the PGA Championship at Aronimink in three weeks.
“I did realize that was part of winning this, which is awesome,” Cink said. “What an opportunity, but I’ve got to think about the schedule coming up. You know, this is unusual where a win gets you into a tournament that’s in three weeks, because I’ve got my schedule kind of blocked out for quite a while here. I’ll adjust other stuff to play in the PGA because, number one, I miss all the young guys. I haven’t been around them very much. Being able to see them will be fun, so yeah, I’m excited about it.”
Featured image: PGSA Tour Champions
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
Have a story idea or a news item to report to Alabama Golf News? Email gregg@alabamagolfnews.com
