THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 23, 2002

Stewart Cink

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Stuart, for joining us. Great round today. No bogeys, 66. And you actually played out there I guess the wind was blowing pretty hard or starting to blow when you teed off. Why don't you talk about a that a little bit and then we will go into questions.

STEWART CINK: Well, the golf course was really in great shape out there. The greens were much faster than the practice rounds. I think that threw off a lot of players early. I know our first hole of the day, we all blew it way by. Luckily mine hit the back of the cup and went in. It was challenging from the start. The pins were tough and the wind started blowing pretty hard and it was blowing all day. You got some big trees around this course. So a lot of holes are protected from the wind but it still swirls through there so I feel really good about a good score today.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Questions?

Q. You mentioned outside that you haven't played here very well the first, I guess four or five years that you were here. And then last year put four good rounds together.

STEWART CINK: I played very solid last year. I finished fourth, I don't remember my rounds but I played good all the way I never really, I didn't have a 62 or anything, but --

Q. Is there something about -- have you learned more about this course every time you play it?

STEWART CINK: I think that's what it is. I think this is one of the courses that teaches you a lot and it punishes you for being greedy and making bad decisions and you just have to learn where your spots are that you can be aggressive. And I think that last year I figured it out a little bit that you just can't aim at every flag. You have to -- it's like playing a Major. You have to play to the center of the greens, even if you feel like you can aim at it sometimes you just can't. And par is always good here.

Q. Given the way this course has played in recent years, when you've played it, is this the windiest round you've had here?

STEWART CINK: No, it's not the windiest. It usually blows a little bit. This is a typical wind. Southwest. Today is it was breezy out there. There was some shots that were challenging because of the breeze. But when you're in these big trees and a lot of the holes play down low in the valleys, you don't feel that much wind on your shots. But when your ball gets up in the air you can see it moves around a bit and the trees are bending over. It's pretty typical. There's usually some breeze up here.

Q. Any recent changes or anything you've done differently that has got you playing well at the moment?

STEWART CINK: Well, today is one round. I haven't, I have not played -- I feel like I'm one of the biggest under- achievers on the PGA Tour for the last two or three years. I've had some good finishes, I've been close to winning some and close to winning more but I just done feel that I've been getting the results that I should be getting. I just feel like I'm a better player than my results are showing. So I've decided to kind of go back to some basics with my game and just work on just some fundamentals. I'm concentrating on some fundamentals in my golf swing and just trying to play smart and take it one shot at a time. And I'm just simplifying everything. This year I've just been driving it pretty bad and I've been putting -- started here, I putted worse and I got a lot better, I putted a lot better recently. But I just have not had a very good year driving the ball or putting. And that's really the two things that have you to do, at least one of, and have I not done either of them any good at all. So I drove it a lot better last week and I putted better and so this week I just came out with the same thoughts and hopefully I'll just ride it on.

Q. I've seen you on the putting green quite a bit this year. Have you changed grips or tinkered?

STEWART CINK: No, I haven't done anything, I did actually use cross-hand earlier this year to see if that would spur me on some. But I'm a firm believer in the fact that it's not the grip of the putter or the ball, it's definitely between the ears, the gray matter, that affects the putting the most. So I haven't really changed my technique any. And I don't think I have a mechanical problem at all. I just haven't seemed to be able to get the ball in the hole when I needed to.

Q. Has any of that been a hangover from Tulsa or is that too far?

STEWART CINK: Tulsa was a lot more of the result of stuff that the previous three or four years. Just -- that kind of thing has, the little short putt I missed at Tulsa that was kind of a throwaway because I felt like I was out of the tournament right there and it came around and got me. Everybody knows, we don't need to rehash that. But there was, there's just some -- I don't know how to describe it. I just been feeling like I've putted like I know I can. For a bunch of years now. I ranked number two in stats in '98 in putting. Since then I've been well down the list.

Q. Did the first time you got into this tournament, was it as the Jack Nicklaus Award winner?

STEWART CINK: I think it was. I got the Jack Nicklaus Award in '95 and then I got invited in '96 to play. That was when I was playing on the BUY.COM TOUR.

Q. Do you know that the guy that the award is named for is five strokes behind you right now?

STEWART CINK: No, I didn't know that.

Q. He birdied four of the last five holes and shot 71.

STEWART CINK: Oh, good for him. He's got it in him, I know that. He's always been really kind to me. I played on his youngest son's college team, Michael played with him at Georgia Tech and we were friends and so I got to know Jack a little bit through that relationship. And I always go out of my way to say hi and he's always been just great to me. I love playing here too.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Couple more questions.

Q. You worked so hard last year to get on the Ryder Cup team, has there been a letdown or -- was that working to get to than all if sudden that's not there. Has that affected your game this year do you think?

STEWART CINK: It might have an affected my game a little bit. But I'm trying to play the Tour events that I'm playing in. I'm not thinking about the Ryder Cup at all. But to be named to the team and expecting to go to the Ryder Cup two or three weeks later and have it pushed back a year that's something that's kind of out there in your mind and being a first timer I don't know what to expect about the Ryder Cup. So I've been thinking about it some but as far as preparing for it, you know, with my game, I'm not thinking about it at all. That will be later on. But I would definitely have preferred to go ahead and played the Ryder Cup because I felt like when you qualify, three weeks later you go to the tournament, that's a much better situation than it's turned out to be. For both teams.

Q. Stuart Appleby was in here earlier and mentioned the same thing that you mentioned, about working hard and not getting the results you think you should be getting. How do you keep from letting the frustration get the best of you in a situation like this?

STEWART CINK: Well, I've always relied on my faith real heavily, for one thing. I've always -- I've never -- let me rephrase that. I've never been afraid to talk about that. With people whether it's media, friends, whatever. And I really believe that that's the rock that I have. I've been through a lot. Anybody that plays golf out here for a long enough time goes through some ups and downs and I been through both of them. And the one thing I always have with me, whether it's up or down is that, is my faith. And so I stay with that and I have a lot of patience too.

Q. Have you changed putters much during all this?

STEWART CINK: I changed putters once or twice. Like I said before, I don't believe it's the putter.

Q. Can you go through your round a little bit, you started out real fast?

STEWART CINK: Yeah, sure. On the first hole every one, I think, that walks that first green is expecting the greens to be lightning. Because yesterday they were slow. I mean they were almost like fairway yesterday they were so slow. And every one knows that Mr. Nicklaus is not going to put up with that. So when we got to the first hole Stadler was the first one to putt and he blew his by at least 15 feet. And I was next to putt and the same line as him and I thought I would give it a little less and mine was headed right to his marker except it hit the back of the cup. Fell in.

Q. And how long a putt was that?

STEWART CINK: It was about 40 feet. And so that was a nice start. And then calmed me down a little bit. You always have a little bit of jitteriness, I guess, at the first of the tournament. In the second hole I hit two good shots in there about 10 feet. Made a downhill putt there for birdie. 3-wood, 9-iron. Straight down wind.

Reached five in two with a 3-wood and 5-wood about 40 feet, 3-putted.

And 12 I was headed six or eight feet past again there and hit the back of the cup from about 30 feet.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: What club did you use?

STEWART CINK: I used an 8-iron. Hit to the fringe. Back of the green.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: 13.

STEWART CINK: 13, down the middle again with a 3-wood and then hit a really good second shot there about 10 feet right of the hole and made that one. 7-iron there.

Do you want me to say the clubs, Joan?

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Yes.

STEWART CINK: And I think 15 -- was 15 the last one?

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Yeah.

STEWART CINK: 15 I hit driver, 5-wood, about 50 feet past the hole and just in the first cut of rough, and chipped it down the hill about eight feet past and made that. I chipped to with a sand wedge.

Q. Did you have any saves along the way?

STEWART CINK: Saves? Well, 16 the green fooled me there a little bit. I only had about a 50-footer for birdie and I left it way short like five feet short. I had to go up a pretty steep bank and down a little bit to the hole and I left it short. So I made that. That was really the only save I made all day. I got up-and-down from the bunker on eight, but it was only about a four-footer. I really hit the ball well today. I hit all the fairways until 17 and 18. I missed those. But then I recovered pretty well from those two situations made parses on both those holes and really just hit a lot of good quality shots and gave myself a lot of looks at birdie and some of them went in.

Q. Has the drive gotten noticeably tougher on 18?

STEWART CINK: It has. Used to be a fairly narrow hole but if you miss it left you had at least 10 yards of rough so your ball would almost always stop in the rough. And now if you miss the fairway by three feet it's wet. So of course I hit it right bunker there. It's a tough shot. You also have to lay back a little further than you used to, I think. Because the water pinches in further on the left. So you don't have as much room. So there will be longer second shots.

Q. Are you one of those guys that can try to fly that new bunker or not?

STEWART CINK: I don't even know how far it is to fly it.

Q. 330.

STEWART CINK: 330?

Q. Yeah.

STEWART CINK: Well I'm not one of those guys.

(Laughter.) I'm not sure there is anyone who can fly it 330.

Q. You said you were under, you thought you underachieved. What would you expect in your career you should have achieved? Should it have been more tournament wins, a Major, what?

STEWART CINK: Well it's hard to say. I've really only put myself in position to win one Major, that was last year at the U.S. Open. So I can't really say I should have won a bunch of Majors, but I really feel like I should have won more tournaments here on Tour. I've been in good shape and I've given away a couple, but everybody does that. But I just feel like I really haven't put myself in contention enough. It's almost luck of the draw whether you win or don't win. Finishing first or second a lot of times is not depending upon who plays the best, but sometimes you just have to get yourself into a position and let it happen. And I just feel like I haven't gotten myself in position as much as I should. I'm a smart player and I have a, I got a great feel for the game and I love playing. I just am still waiting, I guess.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Is that it? Thank you, Stewart.

STEWART CINK: Okay. Thank you.

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