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THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLASeptember 24, 2009Stewart CinkATLANTA, GEORGIA JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Open champion, Stewart Cink. Thanks for joining us here after a first round 3-under 67, maybe some opening comments. Good start for you. Like I said, 3-under. STEWART CINK: Yeah, it was a pretty good start. I was pleased with the score, I guess. I played well, especially the front nine, and then the back nine just slowed down a little bit. I didn't have that many good looks at it. But under par, I mean, the golf course, considering all that rain we had, it's really dried out, and the greens are like bricks. You have to be very smart coming into the greens here to give yourself any kind of aggressive birdies. Q. When you say the greens are so hard, are they unreasonably hard, or are they just hard? STEWART CINK: Well, it's borderline sometimes out there. They do have some pins that are on some downslopes, but if you hit it in the fairway you can control the ball in there and get it close to pin high. If you're in the rough, you can forget about it. So that's the hallmark of a great test. The 18th hole is a little questionable. It's like 219 yards to the front, and the pin is on eight, and there's just no way to stop it down there in that valley. But everybody has to play it. You know, for the Top 30 players on the year so far, everybody can hit the ball pretty high. It's just that sheer trajectory doesn't stop the ball on these greens. It's tough. Q. They haven't really been able to cut the rough back this week because of getting the mowers out there and all of that. How much do you think that's contributing to the difficulty coming out of it? Is it longer than you expected it to be? STEWART CINK: The rough is not. The rough is a little bit lighter. I think they cut the rough back last week before all this rain, and they were planning on topping it off about two, two and a half inches. It's impossible to mow down. But the rough is not a huge factor like it has been in the past here. But it's just the greens. The Bermuda greens are just very, very firm. It's exacting coming into the greens. Q. You've played here for many, many years. Where would you rank the greens in their current condition compared to where they've been over all the years? STEWART CINK: I'd say tied for the best they've ever been with last year. They were amazing last year, and they're amazing this year. I just wish that everybody -- every greens committee in the city of Atlanta would send a committee member down here to see this course and to see this Bermudagrass. It would be really hard to convince committees not to go to Bermudagrass if they were changing over their greens or doing any work. It's just fabulous the way the course is right now. I hope Sugarloaf sends the greens committee down here. Q. If we don't get any more moisture here this week, are you concerned about how hard the greens will be? STEWART CINK: No, because they can control them and they can water. They've been using these SubAir systems on these greens now pretty much around the check ever since we got a foot of rain. Think that's had something to do with it, but it doesn't take a lot with this Bermuda because the root structure is too coarse and so dense that the ball doesn't dig in. It just bounces off like a cart path. If it rains a little bit, they'll be fine. If it doesn't rain, they'll probably water a little bit. I think they want to keep them about how they are right now. Any more than this it gets a little bit out of hand. They'll keep them about how they are. It's just absolutely ideal for a tournament out there. Q. Can you contrast the golf course now as opposed to the neighborhood, the course, the club back in Georgia Tech days? Brian Newton talked about the automatic press if you heard a gunshot, I mean, how far it's come? STEWART CINK: Well, yeah, they've really cleaned up the area quite a bit. That's something that we all know about. Just across the street, across 2nd Avenue I think it is, over there where the Charles Yates course is right now, there used to be one of the most dangerous and notorious housing projects in the U.S., East Lake Meadows. It was scary over there, and there was a lot of death, a lot of crime, and just it was a sad story. When they came in and they relocated everybody, they offered low-income housing, and they propped everybody up. It just really began to blossom, and now it's a desirable area. Outside the gates is incredible. We all know what happens inside the gates; the golf course is fantastic. Yeah, it was a little dangerous back then, but we liked to take advantage of it because no one ever played here, and we could almost always get on. They never said no. Q. You played really well in the early years over at Sugarloaf, but you haven't really had much success here. Any explanation for it? STEWART CINK: Yeah, this is, I think, the best round I've started with at this tournament. I think in the past I've tried to combine the rest of my life that goes on when I'm having an off week here with having a tournament, and it's just been a little bit too much. And I came into this week with a little bit different attitude, and it was something that was forced by the weather. I wasn't able to prepare or practice, and I kind of needed to be selfish and give myself plenty of time to get ready for the tournament once the rain stopped. But I just wanted to come and just play a golf tournament this week and sort of forget about everything going on at home. At my kids' ages now, they're on auto pilot for the most part anyway now. I don't have to be there to change diapers or anything like that, that's for sure. Q. Did you get any mud balls today, and were you surprised if you did or didn't? STEWART CINK: The only time I got a mud ball was when I hit it in the rough on -- I don't remember, one hole on the back nine. The rough is draining a little slower than the fairway. I can't explain why, but it's a little wetter. Still, though, one mud ball out there today after we had 12 inches of rain, that's really amazing. Q. I heard you on XM Radio talking about the practical joke Padraig Harrington pulled on you with the Open Championship trophy. I was wondering if that's the most amazing thing that's happened since you won that tournament, or if you have one favorite story so far. I saw your eyes kind of light up when Joel introduced you as Open Champion. STEWART CINK: Thanks, Joel. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You're welcome. STEWART CINK: That was a quick practical joke he played on me that was funny. But a lot has been made of it, of a very small incident. Not much happened. The best thing so far has been going through the security -- well, this is just what I thought was the funniest, going through security coming home from Manchester Airport over in England. I had the jug in the case as a carry-on, and I put it through security, and the case -- you know, it's an X-ray, so the jug makes a perfect reflection in silhouette because it's made of whatever it's made of, metal. The case let all the X-rays through, so looking through the screen up on the video screen, was nothing but the silhouette of the Claret Jug. As I went through, they stopped it. They stopped the screen so that all the other bags behind me kept coming through and no one was looking what was in them. When I got on the plane, I had people -- you board early on those international flights, so for 25 minutes people were coming by, saying, hey, I saw the picture of the jug on the video screen. They didn't check a bag for 25 minutes at least, and they left the picture of the jug up. But we made it home safely. I guess no one had any ideas that day. Q. Obviously the projections this week, the movement will be constant. Will you check at all? Will you look at the computer at the end of the day or in the morning, and do you know what you need, what needs to happen for you to win the FedExCup? STEWART CINK: All I know is it's a long list of things that need to happen for me to win the FedExCup. But the No. 1 thing is Stewart Cink needs to win the TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. That needs to happen first. If that happens, then we'll look and see if all the dominos line up. But I won't be checking any projected -- I should say I won't be shunning the scoreboards, but I'm not checking them to see where I finish. I want to win here, and I want to play the golf course the best I can this week and see what happens. I'm not concerned at 26 if I'm going to win the FedExCup. I just want to have a great finish right here. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Can we go through your scorecard real quick? You started on the front side with birdies on 2 and 3. STEWART CINK: Yeah, well, I started off on 1. My drive flew straight into a lady's eye about eight yards right of the fairway. That's not a good way to start for me, but especially for her. It cut her on top of the eye, but she was sitting up and she had a wet towel. She was okay. She was talking and she was fine. But that's still -- that shakes you up a little bit. For the first four or five holes I was a little shaky. Even though I birdied 2 and 3, I made about a 12-footer on 2, and I hit it real close on 3, about three feet. Then had to make some good par saves. But finally settled in and got real calm on about the fifth or sixth hole. I felt like I was in control again. But let's see, 7, I made a good approach and hit it about 15 feet past the hole, made the putt. 9, I hit it in the rough but got a good enough lie to go across the lake and hit a very ordinary wedge about 20 feet but made the putt. Three-putted 13 from 25 feet, just kind of a brain cramp there from straight above the hole, left it short. Missed the fairway on 15, but hit a great wedge in there, just a foot. And 16, made bogey there again from the middle of the fairway with a wedge in. Hit it left of the green and missed about a six-footer. All in all, a good round, but the bogeys were both from very good positions in the fairway, and if you're going to win a tournament, you can't be doing that. I'll have to correct it. Q. What was the first time you played here, and can you ballpark how many times you've played here over the years? STEWART CINK: Well, I started here in 1991, and I would guess I probably played here for the first time in the fall of '91. I might have played here more times during my college, my four years in college, than I have since then, except for the TOUR Championship. I only come down here three or four times a year and play. But it's a pleasure to be here, and the course is really good right now, but it's not a lot different than this year-round. This is what you get. This is what you get at East Lake. It's hard greens, it's narrow fairways, and it's a really good test all year. I've probably played here at least 30 times in college and probably played here 30 times since then. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Stewart Cink, thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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