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CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK CLASSIC PRESENTED BY WAL-MARTOctober 30, 2007Stewart CinkLAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA STEWART MOORE: Stewart Cink, thanks for spending a few moments with us here at the interview room of the Children's Miracle Network Classic. Looking back on the year. It's been fairly consistent. You've played 24 tournaments, twelve top 25 finishes, victorious President's Cup team - how would you assess this season for you and your career? STEWART CINK: Well, I would say I can't give it to high a grade, because I don't have any wins. I loved winning the President's Cup. But it doesn't count as a win. It doesn't get me -- there are a lot of things it doesn't get me. Overall, I think I took a few steps forward this year. Maybe fallen back a little bit in a couple other areas, you know. Just not exactly what I had in mind to start the year. But overall I had some good output. I think, if nothing else, I definitely have a pretty clear picture of where I need to go from here to try to get better and compete a little bit better out here. STEWART MOORE: Where is that? Where do you need to go? STEWART CINK: The more you play, the more you feel like you get a better idea of your level of play compared to other players. I think my short game is still just a little bit, you know, less than it needs to be. When I look at Tiger and Phil, those guys have rock solid short games. I think mine could be better. Also, I think driving accuracy - my stats show I don't think I've been in the top 100 in driving accuracy maybe since my rookie year, if ever. They all say nowadays that you don't have to be straight to compete out here, but it sure makes it a heck of a lot easier to have good rounds. When you see guys shooting rounds like 65, 64, 63, you're not shooting those rounds from the rough. They're shooting those rounds from the fairway. And that's where I think I need to make a big focus on my short game, and keep the ball in play a little more often. STEWART MOORE: Questions. Q. What are your goals for this week? STEWART CINK: I'm here this week to try to win. I said that before Grayhawk, too, and I missed the cut (laughing). Really, I haven't won, I'd like to win. But the real reason I'm here is because I don't like to just take off months and months of time before I come back to play again. So I like to space it out a little bit. I played in Fry's Electronics or Fry's.Com, I don't remember which one it was, but the Grayhawk tournament. I'm playing here. I'm playing the Shootout, the Merrill Lynch Shootout, and then I'll start it off with next year. But I don't like to take off three or four months like some guys. That's not me. So I'm here to space it out. Q. Who are you playing with at the Merrill Lynch Shootout? STEWART CINK: Zach Jones. Q. And what are your thoughts on possibly moving a Tour Championship on the other side of the Ryder Cup next year? STEWART CINK: Well, I think that first of all, I honestly don't think there's a real good scenario at all. Because there's too many really big tournaments that are right next to each other. So you always have to rob Peter to pay Paul in some sentences. But moving it after, I think would be the overall net effect would be good for the FedEx Cup. Just because we probably won't have to deal with as many players saying, well, I'm just not going to play. I think it will be easier to get the fields closer to 100% if they space it out some. Q. November 12th? STEWART CINK: I haven't voted yet. Q. You guys are kicking it around. Are there various scenarios there with that? And how it plays out like model 1, model 2, model 3? Durant was saying last week there might be a dark week with no play? STEWART CINK: It's possible. I don't really know the details. And I'm not saying that because I don't want to talk about it. I don't know the details yet. Q. There may not be any? STEWART CINK: That's for sure. One scenario may be we may play the first three tournaments, and then no tournament before the Ryder Cup, and then the TOUR Championship after the Ryder Cup. I don't know if the Fall Series might move up and take that week, that may be. But we haven't discussed that at all yet, so. Q. You talked about some things you wanted to work on in your game, your short game. At the end of the season, do you sit down and look at your ShotLink stats? Do you look at those at all? STEWART CINK: I don't use those that much, because I think the best stat machine is right here. I know playing whether I'm doing good and when I'm not doing well. You know, it's just you play golf enough to the point where you know. And you don't need a machine or a stat keeper to tell you you're hitting a lot of greens in regulation or whatever, you know. You know if you're putting well, you know if you're driving it good, you just know. And there's been too many instances where I played a round of golf and looked back in my stats, and I saw that the stats that were attributed to me were actually somebody else's in the group. So you can't really trust the stats every time. Q. Hopefully it was Tiger, right? STEWART CINK: Wasn't Tiger. At Doral it was Curtis Strange at Doral one time. I drove it really good one day, and I was curious, because I felt like I was driving it longer than usual. So I went back to look at my stats and I had like a 255 average, and Curtis Strange had a 295, so (laughing). It was a while back. But from that point on I was like okay, why would we go and look at the stats? I look at them just because it's interesting to me, but not to gauge my preparation for the next season or anything. I just, I don't know. I've never really looked at the stats and been surprised at where I was ranking it from. Q. The Fall Series, I don't know how close you've been watching it, but I guess it's because so many of the top 30 guys aren't playing there's been massive volatility on the 125 number. It looks like around $800,000 will be the number to keep your card. I'm wondering, are you surprised by that? I don't know if anybody drew up the Fall Series quite like that. There's been a lot of guys making big leaps, and that is a way higher number than what was projected using the former models when there would be big guys cyphering off large chunks of cash? STEWART CINK: That's possible that might be the case, but I can't say for sure. I haven't looked at the money list that closely. But I did hear some talk about how it's moving up faster. There are a couple of players who thought they were safe, and they elected to have surgery or something like that. Like Brent Quigley, they're now out. So it may be. A lot of guys aren't playing, and I don't know. But that's interesting that it's happening. I think if a lot of the high ranked players aren't here, I would think some players that haven't had great years their confidence gets a little bit of a boost. So they feel like they're competing more, rather than having to fight it out against a guy they feel outmatched against. Q. It seems like it may be unintended positive in that it's added a different layer of interest that wasn't necessarily foreseen. You have some hail Mary's here in two-minute drills? STEWART CINK: That's a great story. Every year there's somebody that plays a great last round or great tournament to move in. It's a great story. This year it looks like every week there's somebody finishing way high up that's way down the money list, and they're suddenly safe. Yeah, it makes good interest if you like to follow the money list. Q. Along the same lines, what's been your opinion of how the Fall Series has worked so far? And was there ever any discussion about taking a page out of the European Tour, where having those fall events in '07, be the beginning of the '08 season or whatever year you want to pick? Has that been discussed at all? STEWART CINK: That was discussed early, but it didn't gain any momentum, and I don't remember why. For some reason it wasn't very popular to say like we have an '07-'08 season like other sports. The new year, Christmas holiday doesn't seem to bother football. They go over it. NBA goes over it. Hockey goes over it. Q. Players might have a different view of it? STEWART CINK: Yeah, they would. But I don't know. I think a lot of the top players they're pretty excited about having some time off where they don't need to play. Where they don't feel compelled to get out there, compete and try to keep their spot or whatever. And Tiger's off to San Diego next year it sounds like. Q. How do you think it's gone so far this year? STEWART CINK: Well, just looking in from an outsider's perspective, having only played one tournament, it looks to me like there are some bright spots in the fall. Definitely the Turning Stone event was a bright spot. Looked great on TV from what I saw on TV. There's good developments with Grayhawk that is eventually going to evolve into that institute, sponsored by Fry's. So there are some really bright spots that may end up blossoming into something else. Maybe moving the FedEx Cup, who knows. But I think, you know, too, it's given players that haven't had access to tournaments for a while, a chance to play and compete for good prize money and on television. You know, like we were mentioning earlier, somebody's got a chance to move in from way down the list, way in the dark, to suddenly see the light and be able to move in and get a card for next year, that's a feel-good story. But as far as the way the Fall Series has gone, I can't really -- I don't know. I haven't really spoken to any sponsors. Q. The public? STEWART CINK: I don't really know. Q. Along those lines, what would be the problem with at least just you can still call it the '07 season, but assigning FedEx Cup points toward next year like they used to do with the Ryder Cup, and still do now. You know they can pick up scant points but the meat of it is coming next year. What would be the problem there? STEWART CINK: I don't know. I don't think there would be a problem. I don't know. For some reason it came up at the beginning when this whole thing was starting to develop, and it just never gained any traction. I just can't remember what the reasoning was, if there was any reason or if it just got shot down early, and everyone forgot about it. But I think right now if you asked players, I think everyone would say yeah, this tournament should count for something besides just the money list. Q. If you didn't play the all during the fall, would it get under your skin knowing that guys were out here playing for FedEx Cups for the '08 season? STEWART CINK: I can relate to that. Because if I didn't play the two tournaments in Hawaii or the first tournament on the west coast which is usually the Hope, it would get under my skin that I was missing three tournaments, and guys were getting a head start on me before I even teed up. That bothers me. It's my choice that I don't play, except for Kapalua, if I don't get in there. But it always bothers me a little bit, it just does. So I usually play Sony just because of that. Q. I know you're saying it would cap off your season nicely with a win. In that regard, would it be nice coming here to a Fall Series knowing you don't have to knock off Tiger and the rest to get a win? STEWART CINK: I don't think that would factor into it at all. If you're going to win a tournament, you'd rather everybody be in the field. I've only won one tournament when Tiger was in the field, and that meant something to me. Q. Talk about the World Golf Championship events, Doral and Akron, maybe going to a full field in those events. Some guys were saying it was harder to get into Doral than the Masters this year. If you made a full field event and had a cut, would it cost more playing opportunities? Given light of Tiger's event being limited to 120, is there any discussion about that? STEWART CINK: Yeah, there has, absolutely. Q. Is there any chance of moving into that direction? STEWART CINK: There are a lot of limited field tournaments. There's been talk about moving those tournaments into like you're saying, regular-sized fields. But part of that is we have long-term contracts with the sponsors now. Like three years or maybe more. But the contracts all say 78 players or whatever it is in the field. So we have to go in there and redo that stuff. It gets into some areas that are difficult, sometimes. Because, well, these days we're happy to have a title sponsor in the tournament. To go in there and muddy the waters a little bit is risky. Q. What if it was a lot more players? Better depth of field? STEWART CINK: A lot of sponsors like limited field tournaments. It feels that it presents them of a higher level of tournament, more prestigious field. It's a perception thing. To go in there and tell them that they're going to become a big field with a cut, they may say, hold on, that's not what we signed up for. So it sounds easy, but it's not as easy as it may sound in reality. On the other hand, tournaments like Colonial, Memorial, they're limited fields. We've asked them, Colonial's already agreed. I'm not sure where we stand with Memorial. But Colonial's already agreed to go from 114 to 120. So we've gained a little bit there. And the past champions that decide to play in that tournament are now added to the field, so it's included. So it's effectively moving the field numbers up a little bit more. So we're moving in that direction. I like especially middle of the summer, I don't see what the point is having a small field. I think we ought to just play max. But the sponsor has a lot to say about it. The way I see it, if we can have a tournament and have a sponsor that wants to give the money and support the TOUR and put up a field of 120 players, that's 120 more players we'd have playing that week if we didn't have that sponsor. Q. When you have a field where you have some top players and some of the guys like ranked 341, and he got in. You wind up with not necessarily the top 70 players in the world? STEWART CINK: No, you don't end up with the best ranked players in the world, but just the way it's designed the qualifying status and the way the regulations say, you're going to end up with number 1 through 50. And then you end up with somebody nobody's ever heard of, and that's just the way it is. Q. How do you think the rank and file will be pushing for more play time? STEWART CINK: And they are. Rank and file, I mean, the charter of the TOUR says that our job is to try to maximize playing opportunities for players, for professionals. And so that's what the board and everybody on the TOUR we have to go towards that and try to maximize it. But it's not always possible to just play 156 players. Q. Now that the FedEx Cup has been finished for the year. It was fairly successful by almost every yardstick and the ratings, and the guy who won it, most fans would want to see who won, and the interest was pretty good. Is there anything that you can think of or should the TOUR make a push towards starting the season with more of a bang? It's like the TOUR season now sort of begins in Hawaii at 10:00 o'clock at night on the east coast. Not all of the players who are eligible to play are going, and I think you know who I'm talking about there. This year you won't have Ernie, Retief, Sergio, Toms, Cink will not be there. Every other sport today is massive. And with the PGA TOUR, it's like, oh, we're bringing another one. There are 30 guys playing. Is that fixable? Is it maybe Hawaii's not the best place to start the year? There's no crowd? STEWART CINK: Yeah, maybe. That's not been kicked around at all. Q. For a prestigious event, it seems that it's taken a drop? STEWART CINK: Yeah, I don't understand that. I don't understand why you wouldn't go and play there. It's a golf course thing, I think. A lot of players don't like it. I love it. I think it's a fantastic place to play. It's different. It's a good way to get the year started. It's a good test, because it's always windy, and there are a lot of reasons. I don't know, that's an interesting point. Maybe the schedule could be jazzed up a bit at the beginning, and maybe it could be. The one thing is it's kind of hard to get a real solid lead in or a run-up to these tournaments that start right after New Year's, because the Christmas holiday is not a good television season. It's hard to run up when you have nothing on. It's easy to run-up to the Super Bowl when you have the playoffs on, everybody's watching. Everybody here watching the Super Bowl is watching the playoffs. When the Golf Channel's showing Mercedes, no one's watching the Golf Channel over Christmas holidays, unless they want to watch Australian tournaments. I like to have those on as background noise in the house. I admit it, I'm an Australian Tour junky (laughing). But the run-up is a difficult task for them. Then all of a sudden, it's here, it's Thursday, and you just, you know, everybody's still trying to get over the New Year's Day sickness that happens. And suddenly, two days later you have the PGA TOUR. It's a real live animal. The timing of it is a little bit awkward and difficult, the fact that it's not on a major mainstream type media outlet. It's right there after New Year's, and it is at times, too. I don't know. Maybe there is something to look into. Q. That tournament has always been low-key? STEWART CINK: It's kind of the vibe itself. You almost have to want it to be. Q. It's almost you don't even notice that it's taking place because of the lack of fanfare? STEWART CINK: That's a good point. If you want to come to the next meeting (laughing), you're welcome to come and present your case. It's a good point. It would be great if we could do every tournament like that and get a huge bang for every single tournament. But that's not going to happen, so, we've got a lot of tournaments that last a long time during the year. Q. Can you talk about your year briefly how you did, how you're playing now? STEWART MOORE: It was the first question. STEWART CINK: You want me to answer it? Q. No. One last thing would be this is a new year and new tour, lot of things changed with the FedEx Cup. What do you think worked and what do you think didn't work? STEWART CINK: That's a good question. The FedEx Cup, overall, I think was a big success. Players seemed to like it, and there was a really good participation rate even though very high profile absence of Tiger and Phil in the field in those couple of tournaments hurt a little bit. It mainly hurt the sponsors of those tournaments. The golf fan didn't seem to be too perturbed by it. Because those guys both came back and played in the last one. And I think that most of the fans got a sense that everybody cared about it. Tiger wanted to be the first one on the trophy and all of that, so that was a positive, for sure. The Fall Series, I think has been a mix. I think the players have been excited to have a chance to get in some tournaments that they may not have been able to get in otherwise. But I'm sure the sponsors probably thought that maybe somebody from the top 10 or 20 on the money list, or somebody really high up would come give them a boost. That hasn't really materialized. .a lot of guys have not played. I think the President's Cup in Canada was a real winner, with Mike Weir showing so well. Him and Tiger having a great match. That probably goes down as one of the all-time greatest singles matches of any Ryder Cup or President's Cup because of where it was and who was playing. And the result, too, was obviously a big deal. So the President's Cup is a real winner. And it continues to gain momentum. So I'm happy that that's the case. The regular season, FedEx Cup, I think a lot of fans gained a lot of understanding for it. And they're starting to accept it, and everybody's sort of put up a little bit of a barrier at first, And they're starting to ease off the barrier. One thing is everybody knows the FedEx Cup's not going anywhere, it's here. So if you're a golf fan, you better start liking the FedEx Cup because it's going to be here. Q. Player's Championship move and just rearrange the schedule? STEWART CINK: Yeah, the rearrange, I think was a big hit among golfers. We got to finish the TOUR Championship in September was a big hit for us. I know I loved it. The Player's Championship, moving to may, and then sort of you have a new course, and entering the new era for the Player's Championship or the Players, I think, we changed the name, too. The Players we call it now. That was a good thing. We positioned that well where I don't know, having the field to win there. It really was, it felt like it was sort of a welcome to the new Players Championship. And I finished third there, so that made it a much better tournament than ever before (laughing). Q. In the last 12 weeks of the season, you have three majors, one World Golf Championship, four playoff events. Is that too much crammed into a short period of time? STEWART CINK: Well, I think if had it our way, we'd never play a tournament that wasn't a major playoff event, something huge. We're supposed to be the big stage players. And the bigger the stage, the better it is, right? So the players spend a lot of time clamoring and trying to say let's get the best together more often, but we've got it. Now what are we going to do, complain that there's too much of that? That's exactly what we asked for. I don't think it's a big thing at all. I think it's great. To put huge tournaments there, down the back end of the season with huge tournaments and get the top players busy, I say at least the same or more would be better. STEWART MOORE: Thanks for coming in. Best of luck to you. End of FastScripts |
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