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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPFebruary 24, 2008Stewart CinkTUCSON, ARIZONA JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Stewart, for joining us here for a few minutes in the media center at the Accenture Match Play Championship. Tough day out there, but you ought to be really proud of yourself to get to that final match. It's a tough thing to do to begin with, and then to have to play Tiger Woods with where he is right now is pretty tough on top of that. STEWART CINK: There's no question. I'm very proud of the way I played all week, until today. I'm a little disappointed I didn't throw a little more at Tiger, put some pressure on him. It wasn't that close a match. I think that needs no further explanation. But overall, yeah, I'm very pleased with making it through and making it through with the players that came through. I look back over the list of guys and, wow, it's pretty much like a list of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup from the last several years. So I'm proud of that. I'm taking away a lot of positives from this week, but I'm disappointed about today. Q. Why is he so good? What creates these miles of separation between him and everybody else? STEWART CINK: I think he just has this -- such a strong sense of belief in himself that he's just never out of it. He's never going to mess up. He's just always in control. He never loses his composure. He gets mad; that's not what I'm referring to. But he never loses his composure. He always stays very poised, and he doesn't very often throw away a shot. In match play, especially a 36-hole match, you know, if your opponent is not ever really opening the door then you've got to do something spectacular, and I didn't. I just didn't. Q. You've known him for a long time. Has he always had that quality? Has he gotten better at it? STEWART CINK: No, he's a lot better now than he has ever been at that. He's really learned how to stay within himself. He regulates himself and his heartbeat. Physiologically he's regulating all the time. It's just really -- it's impressive and it's paying off for him. Q. You make him sound like a machine. STEWART CINK: I think maybe we ought to slice him open to see what's inside there (laughter). Maybe nuts and bolts. Q. A couple of years ago it was like, okay, the rest of the TOUR is catching up with Tiger. And there was Retief and Ernie and et cetera, et cetera. Now it looks like he's just taken a big step and nobody else is even close. Is that a fair assessment? STEWART CINK: That's a fair assessment, yeah. The only thing about that assessment that I'm not sure is fair is if anybody ever really got that close to him a couple of years ago (laughter). Q. Did you think that eagle putt was going in? STEWART CINK: I told my caddie before he hit it that it was going in. He doesn't like to be upstaged in any way. Even the minuscule amount that that upstaged him there, him being 8-up, I still thought he was going to make it. He lipped it out, and I thought, hey, come on, at least give me a moment to shine here. And he said, sorry, dude -- I don't remember what exactly he said. Q. He gave you a ribbing about it? STEWART CINK: Yeah, we were having fun by that point. We're very comfortable with each other. I like playing with Tiger. I've said it in here, I've said it out there, I've said it all over the place. I love playing with him. He handles himself really well in relation to me and the other guys, if there's more, and he's just gracious. He's a gentleman but he's a killer out there. Q. You had to make something happen early afternoon to have any chance. Did you see anything late in the morning that was particularly disruptive to you, whether it was 17, whether it was 18? I mean, if you could have kept the margin kind of quasi-decent -- STEWART CINK: No, there was never really any stabbers. It was a gradual thing; I just let it get away. Like second part of the front nine, maybe. I think I lost like three out of four holes or something, and the margin just sort of got it to that point where he was able to play very conservative and I had to sort of start pushing the envelope just a little bit. I was really disappointed on 18 this morning that I didn't win that hole because I was in perfect shape and just -- I had trouble actually today. Anytime that he did make a mistake and show just a little bit of an opening to me, I just didn't take advantage of it. He misses a couple of fairways and I just followed him and missed the fairways. Q. That second shot on 18, did you pull it? STEWART CINK: Yeah, I just pulled it. It was an awkward yardage for me, and I had to hit just a little bump 7-iron in there. I just pulled it, you know, and just a bad shot. It wasn't an awfully difficult putt to get close, but it was very fast and a lot of break. To finish like that and to go into an hour break with that on my mind instead of having maybe a little bit of momentum, you know, is just -- it was kind of a, sort of a microcosm of the whole day. Q. What was the yardage on that shot, do you remember? STEWART CINK: I don't remember. It was just a little 7-iron. It was probably around 165 or something. Q. He's now won 15 World Golf events. What does that say? These are the tournaments with the best fields. Some of them rival the majors in terms of field strength. STEWART CINK: Well, it says about the same thing that just about any other stat that you can pull up of his says. It says he's the best that's ever played. So I don't know what else to say about that. I think there's, what, one other player that has more than one, and Darren Clarke I think it is. Q. Two, yeah. STEWART CINK: Yeah. Q. Can you talk about getting to this point, the toughness of the week, the challenge of getting past, amongst the top 64 and getting to this point? STEWART CINK: Well, it's something I'm very proud of, to make it through the guys that I did. I played extremely well every match, with the exception of my match against Colin Montgomerie, where I didn't play great. But I putted really well and still made five or six birdies to one or two bogeys. So I felt like I really came through when I needed to a lot of times. Today that wasn't the case. I think I was probably trying a little too hard to be perfect and not make any mistakes today. But leading up to today I've played some of the best golf I've played in my whole career. Q. This is match play, and obviously it's different than stroke play, but does he make you or other people play a different game than you would prefer to play? STEWART CINK: No, it's not a different game. You don't really have to match up with his shots because you're really not -- he's longer than I am, slightly, off the tee. I'm never going to be able to hit it exactly like he does. I'm playing my game out there, but he forces you into trying to be perfect, because you don't think he's ever going to give you anything. It's not a very good way to play golf when you think you can't afford to make mistakes. You try to be a little careful. And I think that's how I played today. Overall, I played a little bit careful. Q. Obviously you were talking yesterday, you played with him in San Diego, he sort of ran away with that. Do you guys when you get in the locker room or out on the practice tee talk about Tiger? Is there an awe about him with the other players? I know he's just a regular guy on the practice tee. I just wonder if people say, wow, that type of thing. STEWART CINK: Yeah, there is talk about that, sure. I talk to my buddies out here when I play with them. I'll have messages, "tell me about that one shot," or whatever. Some of them will be about my shots and some of them will be about his. It's not something we don't talk about. He's very good and makes good material to talk about. Q. You were around in '99, 2000, which was generally considered to be the best play of his career. He told us at the Buick, after winning that thing by a record margin, he won this thing by a record margin, won The TOUR Championship with the scoring record, that he thinks he's playing the best in his career. I'm wondering what you think. That was an awfully high standard he set before, and it's not a completely parallel universe, but in his mind he thinks so. STEWART CINK: I would agree with Tiger, that he's playing better now than he was then. You just don't see very much sloppiness out there. I know we didn't back then, either, in 2000. It's just hard to say that right now is not as good as that was. I think it's at least as good. Q. Did you ever feel out there in the afternoon a little sheepish about the way the match was going? STEWART CINK: Sheepish, I wouldn't describe it like that exactly. Q. How does it feel when the margin keeps growing like that? STEWART CINK: Well, I spent this whole week demoralizing my opponents because I was playing really well and they just didn't have a chance. And today I was the one who felt demoralized because I didn't have a chance. So I guess maybe I deserved it (laughter). Q. Can I ask you about this week, the cut thing that's supposed to come up, I guess, in Palm Beach? And obviously you played a role in where it was before. Are you disappointed that it's maybe going the other way or are you okay with it? Are you surprised? STEWART CINK: I'm okay with it because -- not that I'm against the way that the rule is right now with the moving cut or whatever. I'm okay with that, too. But to me if the whole membership of the TOUR is very outspoken and almost unanimously against something, then we ought to be changing it. That's the way it's supposed to work. So really whether I'm for the way it was or not really is immaterial if -- our job is to make it more appealing to everybody and also get something that works, so we'll change it. I don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow, but 24 hours from now it will be done. Q. Yesterday you were telling us how you were working with Nike and it really seemed to go to your advantage to be able to design the equipment. After today do you feel that there are any changes that you would make from what you suggested? STEWART CINK: No, because I feel that the equipment I'm using, the ball, the driver, the irons, everything is just as good as it can be. I think the equipment that needs to change is this equipment, right here (indicating his head). If I'm going to compete against Tiger week in and week out and have a chance to beat him, I just have to keep on getting better. And I have to get better faster than he is, which is a tall task. Nike's products are excellent. Tiger and I don't use the same ball. In fact, we don't use any of the same clubs or ball or anything, except for our golf shoes. They're the same. And our hats. Q. You don't have a TW hat. STEWART CINK: You're right, we have different hats. We have similar shoes. Q. And contracts? STEWART CINK: Our contracts are almost the same, too (laughter). But, no, I couldn't be happier with my equipment with Nike, with the golf ball and everything. Especially this year, the new products they came out are excellent. And I wouldn't have been in the finals without them. Q. You said yesterday you were a golf fan, too. I want you to put your golf fan hat on for a minute. As Tiger keeps going, four in a row on the PGA TOUR, where do you see the tough spots for him to win, Bay Hill coming up, Masters, Wachovia, PLAYERS, that kind of stuff? STEWART CINK: Riviera (laughter), that's the only one I know of. I don't think there's a course that's made that doesn't fit him because he just morphs his game into the courses. So I don't think there is a course that's going to present him with a real obstacle as far as just him being not a favorite on something. Q. This will be a tough one, but Stewart Cink's Saturday plays today or if Tiger from Wednesday played, you don't know what you're getting? STEWART CINK: That's true. I guess you're right, format-wise match play would probably be the one where he has to survive, what, six matches? Q. Right. STEWART CINK: I would say that that would be the one that he would likely not win. He almost didn't, right? He went extra holes a couple of times. Q. Day 1. 3-down, five to go. STEWART CINK: Right. JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for your time. End of FastScripts |
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