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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 13, 2008

Stewart Cink

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

RONALD TOWNSEND: Good afternoon. We welcome Stewart Cink, his first appearance today. Stewart shot an even 72 today and 4-under par for the Tournament. How about some comments about your round before we take questions.
STEWART CINK: Playing with Tiger on Sunday at the Masters is about the pinnacle of professional golf and being somewhat in contention, too. It was exciting out there and I got started really well and Tiger made about a 50-foot tap-in on 11 to get things kind of stirred up and to make it more interesting. It was a tough day to play and a lot of fun out there and I always enjoy being out there with Tiger.
He clipped me on the last hole which I had a couple choice words for him walking off the green; but what can you say, he's Tiger Woods.

Q. Just about your round, it's clearly the best finish that you've had here, the last two or three times you've played here, it's gotten progressively better. Is it just a comfort level now or just put it in perspective?
STEWART CINK: I think it is. It's a comfort level. It's a little bit more maturity. It just took me 11 years to mature a little bit. (Laughter).

Q. Slow learner.
STEWART CINK: I'm a slow learner.
I don't find as many surprises here as I used to. I always used to be surprised once or twice a day by pin placements and by the way shots played, and now I think I have either in my mind, I've got memories, or I've got notes written in my yardage book. So I've got something to remind me of what certain shot may play like. And I guess that all falls under the category of experience.

Q. Was the fact that you were in reasonable amount of contention after the first two holes, was that a surprise? You say there are no surprises now but just being in that position.
STEWART CINK: Well, I was surprised with a birdie on the first hole. That's got to be one of the top two or three toughest holes of the day. I hit driver, 4-iron in there about four feet and that was a little bit of a surprise.
The birdie at two, no, it's not a surprise but starting off like that birdie, birdie when everyone in the crowd was thinking that the guy I was playing with was going to go birdie, birdie; that was kind of fun.
But no I've been playing really solidly all week. Drove it well most of the way. Hit a lot of really good irons and not really dramatically close shots with my irons but the right shots to hit. A lot of times you're not aiming directly at the flag here, and I felt like if I continue to do that today and I didn't see any reason not to, that good things were going to happen and I would be able to try to combat some of the wind and maybe let the leaders come back a little bit.
I had a tough stretch of holes out there from 9, 10 and 11 where in those holes, I really hit one bad shot, and if you can believe that; bogey on all three holes.

Q. At that point, they were the three hardest in the round today.
STEWART CINK: Yeah, I think mentally I had a little sip-up on 9 on my second shot. I was dead-center of the fairway and severe downslope, win at my back, pin in the front and I think subconsciously my body tried to lift the ball up in the air on the downslope and of course even you guys, you hackers know what happens; you fat it. And I fatted it right there short of the green and had no chance to get up-and-down there without getting a 15-footer and I didn't make it.

Q. A lot of people think Trevor has one of the better, if not the best swings out here; if you could put your analytical hat, the succinct pass he makes?
STEWART CINK: He's a disciplined-type player. He probably is closer to the Furyk side of the scale or the Zach side of the scale than the Tiger side of the scale as far as power in the style of his play.
He's the type of guy that can win this tournament these days because you don't have to be long, only. You don't have to be only long anymore. You really need to drive it straight, too. And he's a straight hitter, always has been, a good short game, and a lot of confidence.
A lot of people probably think, wow, Trevor Immelman, he's never been in this position before. But I've seen him finish up some tournaments pretty well and recently at Nedbank in South Africa, it's a 12-man field, granted and it's unofficial, but it's a pretty danged good 12 players, and he outlasted everybody there and held on.
So he knows how to finish tournaments and win, and I think he's proven it today.

Q. When did you feel it start to slip away; that maybe winning was out of reach for you, or did you? You might only wind up two or three behind.
STEWART CINK: Well, let's see, I didn't birdie 8. I didn't birdie 7. The 7th hole was straight downwind and was a pretty easy pin. I did not birdie either one of those holes and I felt like I needed to birdie at least one, but I wasn't thinking that way.
Looking back at it, I probably needed one more birdie to give myself a chance. I think everybody that was around my score was kind of expecting a little bit of fall back from the leaders because it's just so tough of an environment to play in.
And then overall, I think I let the last three par 5s go, and then three bogeys in a row on the three toughest holes. So I played basically like the way a lot of guys played today. I made some bogeys, I made some birdies, and I had fun, but it wasn't quite enough.

Q. How proud are you of the weekend, of the performance?
STEWART CINK: Well, I am proud of the way I played. I'm proud of the way I handled myself. Playing with Tiger on Sunday is always a special treat, and it can be difficult, too. But it's something that if you're not looking forward to it, then you're probably not in the right business. And so getting out there and competing with them, and we had a good time, too. We weren't really trying to win the Masters on the last few holes. We were trying to kind of beat each other and he 1-upped me.
But overall I'm proud of the way I played. Made a little adjustment midway through the round, or midway through the Tournament with my putting that actually paid off quite a bit.

Q. A couple guys out there were basically saying great win by whoever wins it this week; if you win a major in Tiger's era, it's a feather in your cap. Even Zach was saying earlier this week that his mom, basically, was like, "I don't care anymore, miss the cut, you won a major, all my worries are gone." Just that idea of enjoy the one major, because there are not too many that are available anymore.
STEWART CINK: Well, yeah, it's kind of like trying to breathe air at the top of Mount Everest; there's just not a whole lot of options left over. You've got a lot of lungs pounding in and out.
Tiger, he's going to win his share, no question. He had an off-week this week and it looks like he might finish second. So it's not just majors, though. It golf tournaments. If you can win any tournament that Tiger is winning, he's winning at like a 30 percent clip. I'm just glad he doesn't play 40 tournaments a year.

Q. Could you discuss what you saw in his round today? It looked like he was close to making some things happen. What did you see today?
STEWART CINK: Well, yeah, he didn't play the same way he played when we played together earlier this year at San Diego or at the Match Play. Those are two pretty impressive performances there.
But today, he still has his dramatic flair and he tapped in on 11 like we talked about. (Laughter).
And it's just amazing to see him, he uses a putt like that and totally transforms his mental thinking. He goes from just kind of struggling, he made a pretty haphazard bogey on 11 from the middle of the fairway, hit in the bunker, not that great of a shot, 2-putted -- I mean 10, sorry.
And then he goes and makes that putt on 11, and all of a sudden he looks like there's no way he's going to lose. You can just see it, even though I didn't really look at him, you can still see it. It's just like an aura around him. You can feel that he thinks he's going to win. He takes it right at it on 12. I mean it never left the flag, right at the flag.
You really thought, gosh, he's going to birdie every hole from here on out, but he just didn't. That's the way Augusta National is, and he hit a lot of good shots but good shots don't always end up in really close territory here.

Q. 13 and 15, a little shocking he didn't get those down?
STEWART CINK: No. Well, 13, I was surprised, I thought he would make that, and the 14th hole where he 3-putted, that was very surprising.
15, he had such a devilish shot from back behind the green, he hit a really good pitch to get to 15 feet and to not make that; even Tiger Woods isn't going to make it from 15 feet.
16, I think I just put too much pressure on him. (Laughter).

Q. Would it surprise you, given the reputation of Augusta and the greens and all that, that Trevor entered this week ranked 202 out of 204 guys in the computer in putts and greens in regulation? I would have thought that would be absolutely impossible here unless you hit every fairway and every green.
STEWART CINK: I think what that indicates is the value of the stat, not the quality of the player.

Q. You're not surprised really that Trevor is able to win something like this; did you think that he was ready to win a major?
STEWART CINK: I didn't think of it that way. I wouldn't say that I thought he wasn't ready to win a major, but it never crossed my mind.
These days, guys are so good and they are so seasoned; he's a young kid. He's, what, about 26 years old or something? 28, he's a young guy still, and even though he's young, he's been playing now in the pros for quite a while. He's played on international teams, World Cups, Presidents Cups, and he's played in a lot of these majors. I'm not surprised. I didn't look at Trevor and say, now there's a guy that's probably got a chance to win this week, but you don't count anybody out.

Q. How long was the putt on 4 that lipped out?
STEWART CINK: Well, from me to the hole was about 12 feet but considering how much break I had to play, it's about 15 feet.

Q. You said that you adjusted something in the middle of the Tournament on your putting; was that before the 69 or after the 69?
STEWART CINK: It was after the first round, so it was the evening after I got finished Thursday. I just had been -- I haven't been very happy with my putting really for the most part of this year, and I don't know, I just kind of made -- I moved considerably closer to the ball. I moved the ball like almost touching my toes. I felt like it was like jammed up against my toes, I was really close, more upright.
But then when I saw myself on TV, I looked absolutely normal. I think I had gotten -- I think I had gotten too far from the ball, and I was having trouble with a consistent path, and I was -- I'm glad that popped into my head, because I putted -- I was very consistent with my putting over the last three rounds. I made some good putts.
RONALD TOWNSEND: Thank you, all. Thank you, Stewart, congratulations and we'll see you next year.

End of FastScripts

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