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SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN OPENOctober 16, 2014Stewart CinkLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Q. What a way to start the PGA TOUR season, a 7‑under opening round. How good was that for you? STEWART CINK: Well, 64 is good for anybody, I think, but on the first day of the year, you don't really ever know what's going to come out, the first day of the season. It's been six weeks since I played, and you have to prepare yourself to be ready for both, a great start and a not so great start, and just be ready to keep going. Today, I have to be honest, through seven holes I had seven pars and it didn't look like anything special out there except a whole lot of grazed putts. I just kind of was patient and waited for a good stretch, and a good stretch happened. Q. Let's talk about that stretch where you had seven pars. Do you feel like you left some out there? STEWART CINK: Yeah, in a way because I hit the ball pretty nice all day and hit almost every green. I had a lot of putts inside 20 feet, and these greens are really perfect. You do feel like you left some out there, but I also feel like I probably stole a couple. Q. When you get off to a great start at a tournament that actually demands low scores, if you were to win, what does that do for your mindset moving forward? STEWART CINK: Well, it's probably easier for you to play here than it is some other venues knowing the scores are low because you can't rest. You don't have the luxury to rest on a good round and go out there and protect it. I just have to keep playing tomorrow. Like I told my caddie joking around, if we just do that every day for the season, we'll be okay, but it's not going to happen. Tomorrow just got to go be ready to repeat the process all over again and see what happens. Q. As impressive as the seven birdies are, I thought maybe the seven pars to start the round were just as impressive because you see everyone making birdies all around you and yet you had the patience to let the golf course come to you. STEWART CINK: You're right. Even though you know it's a low‑scoring event, you still have to remember that it's a long week. You're going to have your share of looks at birdies, and you've got some par‑5s ahead of you, and yeah, I mean, I looked up on the board when I was on No.8 green, I hadn't made a birdie yet, I was even par, and someone was already 6‑under. That was a little disheartening, but you just have to remind yourself it's not a downpour of birdies from the very beginning for the guy that ends up winning this tournament. Q. And a really good birdie on the 18th, too, to finish things off for you. That was dead in the heart. STEWART CINK: Yeah, it was a really nice putt. I got myself into a little bit of trouble off the tee. The hole is 450 yards, I think, and there's only one tree, maybe two little scrubby trees over there and I got stuck behind one of them a little bit, so I had to manufacture something, but the shot came off pretty nice and ended up really close, and the putt was dead in the heart. Q. How would you grade your season last year? You made an awful lot of cuts, but at the same time you're all about the wins, and you haven't won since the British Open. STEWART CINK: Yeah, last year was a close call year for me. It could have been really good. I played well the first opening couple rounds of a lot of tournaments and got myself in position and then didn't have very many good weekends. I especially had some rough patches that lasted four or five holes where I shot myself out of tournaments too many times. You know, it's something you have to try to work through. Part of it's just golf, but also, you kind of think that you're responsible for part of that. I'd give myself probably like a C or maybe even‑‑ that's probably being generous even. Q. The off‑season, the weeks off, did you work on things, and where do you see your game being through the first couple days here? STEWART CINK: Well, you don't really ever know. You can work on it all you want at home, with your coach, and on the range and playing with your friends, but then as soon as you get out here, it feels different. It all feels different. I did work quite a bit. I took a couple weeks off. I was off sick, and I took off the first two completely, really didn't do anything, and then I had a big charity tournament a week ago from this past Monday, so once that got finished, I really started focusing on getting ready to go. I had already sort of addressed a few changes, but I really started working hard on getting ready to play and correct some of those things. It's kind of like playing Whack‑a‑Mole golf. You correct one thing, and something else flares up, and it's just constantly you're searching for where you're going to put the next fire out. Today was a day where there weren't a lot of fires to put out, but today was today, so I'm just‑‑ I was pleased with it, but I don't think that this is an indication of, wow, I've got it all figured out. Q. What were some of the things you were working on addressing over the off‑season? STEWART CINK: Well, the same things that almost everybody that's in the tournament was working on. We looked at some statistics and kind of compare those to what your heart says about the way you played, and then you look at some video of your swing and your putting and you figure out if there's some patterns that are going on that cause some of that, and then you address those patterns, and that's basically how you work with a coach and that's what I did for about four weeks at home. Like I said, we're putting out fires. Q. Who are you working with nowadays? STEWART CINK: Mike Lipnick. Q. How long has that been going on? STEWART CINK: Been right at two years. Q. Has it been that way even during your best years? Do you feel like you're still just keeping your finger on things, keeping something bad from flaring up? STEWART CINK: Totally, absolutely. That's the nature of golf. Every shot feels a little bit different in a way, and a couple of bad results give you feedback, a couple good results give you feedback, and you've just got to mesh it all together and figure out what's working the best. We're not robots. We're human beings, and everything is a little bit different every time. It's just the way golf is, and it's part of what makes it such a great game. Q. Anything behind those four or five hole stretches, just a mental thing or‑‑ STEWART CINK: Well, I know that‑‑ yes, quite mental, but I know that as soon as I made about a 15‑footer on 8, it just‑‑ golf just felt a lot easier from that point on because I felt like I was going to make a few putts. Before that I felt like I was hitting good putts that weren't going in, and it felt hard. But then the very next hole, on 9, I had about the same length putt again, right in the middle. 11, 12 and 13, all nice putts. When you feel nice on the putting greens, it unlocked a lot of good stuff on the golf course. Q. From year to year trying to improve, do you feel like you change a lot of things, or is it more looking back and addressing things? Do you change a lot, or is it more just shoring things up? STEWART CINK: No, I don't think you shore things up because that would indicate that you kind of feel like you've got it where you want it. Maybe the top three or four players in the world would be shoring things up, but most everybody else is trying to look at where they're weak and improve those areas. To me that means changing. That doesn't mean shoring up. Q. Do you go through fairly big changes‑‑ STEWART CINK: Not fairly big, but to a player that‑‑ we play golf a lot. Players, we play a lot of golf. We've played our whole lives. Any little minor change feels huge, and it takes some time to get implemented. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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