RBC HERITAGE

April 14, 2022

Stewart Cink

Harbour Town Golf Links

Quick Quotes

Q. Let's start with the eagle on 10. What was the number and the club and how it looked?

STEWART CINK: It was 152 yards into the wind. So the shot played almost exactly the same as the shot I holed last week at the Masters. Kind of a smooth or a punch 8-iron, and the shot came off like a dream. They go in bunches, they say. I'm hoping it's the beginning of a big bunch of hole-outs because they're a lot of fun.

Q. Let's talk about the rest of the round. How would you characterize it, and what was working so well for you?

STEWART CINK: It was a little bit of a mixed bag. Most of it was good. I had to scrap quite a bit. I didn't hit the ball poorly, but I also missed a lot of greens. That's easy to do here because the greens are tiny. There was a lot of times I had to save myself from around the green with putts from off the green or just little delicate chips, a few bunker shots.

I actually didn't take advantage of very many birdie opportunities I had, but with the hole-out and played pretty nicely on the par-5s on the front nine, it felt like a pretty smooth round.

Q. Obviously coming off a missed cut at the Masters, do you feel like you game kind of came back around a little bit here these couple days as you were leading up to this?

STEWART CINK: I don't know. Augusta's a hard place to really evaluate how you play. You don't have to be very far off there to cost yourself shots. You start to push a little bit towards the end on Friday, maybe making the cut or whatever, and it's just not the kind of place you want to be doing that.

I don't really tend to look at Augusta and try to search for what I need to improve on. It's tempting, but coming here, I just -- I like playing here so much. I feel good here. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the shots, distance control and what's required.

I just kind of put last week in the rearview mirror and doing what I feel is right to do. Eventually I think the door comes down when you keep knocking.

Q. You talked about earlier in the week the memories you had around here and your other title defenses and everything. Is there anything different when you show up as defending champion, not like the earlier stuff, but when you come to the 1st tee on Thursday?

STEWART CINK: Once you come to the 1st tee, I think it's pretty much in the past. Yeah, you're the defending champion, but it doesn't really matter anymore because you focus in on what's going on this year.

Leading up to the tournament the first few days, Monday through Wednesday, there's a lot more to do. There's some more nostalgia and people reminding you of things that happen, which is always nice. But you've got to stay focused.

There's a time for revisiting a lot of that, but when you're on the golf course and you're competing, the course just unfolds differently for you every day anyway. It's not really ha hard to kind of keep it focused on the present.