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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPFebruary 23, 2011Stewart CinkMARANA, ARIZONA DOUG MILNE: Stewart Cink, thanks for joining us for a few minutes. An extra hole but you got the job done. You sent the defending champion home earlier. I think that was your 22nd or 23rd victory here, match play victory here. Just some comments on the match. STEWART CINK: Well, it was like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of a round out there for me. I didn't have much or on the front nine at all. Then my putter woke up. I made some crucial putts out there that got my confidence going a little bit. I didn't hit the ball that great, but I birdied the holes you are supposed to birdie, the par 5s. And the 15th hole I drove it near the green and got it up-and-down. Ian didn't birdie those holes. He did birdie 11, but he didn't birdie the other two. I had some opportunities to make putts when I needed to keep the match going and chip away at the lead and finally, you know I had a chance to take the lead on the 19th hole and hit it in there close. Q. Circling back around a little bit, can you go back and talk about the finality of this thing and how that appeals to you or gets your attention or makes you know that every shot could be your last? STEWART CINK: I do enjoy the finality of every shot like the do or die feel. It brings out a new level of focus. Also I think in the past I have been down in matches and come back and won and I have also been way up and had my matches taken to the last hole. That just sort of gives you the belief that you're never out of it even if you are couple of down -- Ian was playing pretty well. He wasn't really giving away anything, but also he wasn't capitalizing on a lot of birdies. I just never felt like I was completely out of it. I just kept on plugging away. I was hoping some good things would happen and they did at the end. Q. The back nine, every time you stood over a putt, we were watching thinking you were going to hole it. Did you feel that every time you were over a putt? That putter needs a drug test, I think. STEWART CINK: Well, I didn't necessary feel like I was going to make every putt on the back nine, because on the front I didn't make anything. The only explanation I have for the turnaround is I just trust all the stuff I've worked on in my putting was there still. It wasn't going anywhere. And you know, I just had to dig deep and trust that something was going to happen. And a big putt was the par-5, 13 where I hit it in the bunker and was forced to lay it a little ways down the fairway. I had a 9-iron to the green. Made about a 15-footer there. Ian couldn't convert from -- he had a tough up-and-down. That flipped that hole a little bit. I was looking to go three down maybe, and instead I come out of the hole one down. I proceeded to hit it in the desert on the next hole and lose that hole. We didn't have our best, but the putter saved me. Certainly it does you a lot of good to make putts under pressure like that when you need them. I'll remember that match for a while. Q. Can you go an entire year without playing in conditions as chilly as it was when you teed off today? STEWART CINK: I've actually practiced a lot in weather like that at home this winter. I kind of made it a point to get out there in the cold a little bit more and just get the reps in. I'm making a lot of changes to my swing and also my putting. I've been out in the cold a lot this wintertime. It's not been very pretty back on the East Coast. I've been out there fighting it. I wouldn't say that really did anything for me today, because I played pretty poorly when it was cold. It was certainly a gloves and three layer affair out there for about the first six holes and a little breezy too, which added to the challenge. This course is pretty hard when it's cold. It's long, it's really long. We fought through it a little bit, and we shared one hole a double bogey. It wasn't pretty at times, but I just feel really fortunate to come out on top of this one. Q. What is the value of experience both knowing the course and the format? J.B. came in, for example, at 2:00 in the morning having not played the course and won one. Is there something to be said for knowing the course? STEWART CINK: Yeah, the course is probably a little bit less important here than the experience of being in these kind of matches before. When you're playing against a guy like Ian Poulter, you just don't feel like he's going to give you a lot. He's played well. Especially, he seems to be getting stronger in his play, moving up in the World Rankings, and a lot of wins, a lot of good performances at Ryder Cups and obviously the defending champion here. So you know it's going to be a tough match. When I knew I was going to playing him first, I knew I was in for a heavyweight type of a contest out there. The experience that I've had over the years, you know, I've played against some guys that have really thrown everything they have at me and come out on top. I've thrown everything I have at other guys, and they've come out on top. It's just -- you just have to really force yourself into a mentality that losing is not an option. Q. I was going to ask you about playing Ian. When you saw the pairings, did it kind of get your juices flowing a little bit more? STEWART CINK: It probably got my juices flowing negatively. I knew he was going to be a really tough, tough match for me. My game hasn't exactly been sparkling over the last year or so. It's shown the signs lately. I just knew that was probably the toughest draw in the field for the first round to draw him. I'm just -- I feel fortunate. I was also proud of myself the way I hung in there at the end and made some really key putts. Q. Two related questions. I couldn't see where your approach shot on 18 landed. It ended up down there in the rough. What happened on that? And secondly what was going through your mind on that putt to save your par? STEWART CINK: Well, the second shot there I was stuck dead in between clubs, and I had to just really ease my middle sand wedge in. That front pin going downwind just a delicate little shot. I just didn't catch it exactly right. I probably landed about three yards short of where I needed to. It hit the false front on the green and just came down the hill. So definitely quite disappointed. I think I made a mental mistake there by not -- I didn't really calculate the backstop behind the hole. I could have used that. Probably would have been better off if I had done that and calculated that. That was a mental error on my part. Luckily got through that one. On the putt, that's a good situation for a putt of that length, about a six-footer with a little right-to-left break. If you miss that putt, there's no tomorrow. Why not go ahead and give it a good aggressive stroke and hit it like you don't care? You're going to free yourself up better doing that than you are trying to force it over the edge. If you don't have another putt coming back, then it's easier to wrap it in the back of the hole, which is what I did Q. Is that part of your sort of transformed putting style? STEWART CINK: I don't know. I think mentally that's just a position I feel comfortable in that -- when you have to make a putt to tie, it just feels like it's a target in what you're doing. I've worked hard on my preshot routine and leaning on that in a pressure moment. You're just so zeroed in on your goal, it doesn't feel like missing the putt ever even entered the equation. It's a great feeling to have, but you liked to have that same feeling when you have putts to win holes. It doesn't always work that way. The putt on the 19th hole was a short, pretty straight putt, but it's also a little nervey. You don't want to open the door. You've got an opportunity to close it, you want to close it. But that was a good stroke there. Q. When you are a pro at your level, does it ever enter your mind that coming all this way for a single elimination tournament can be a pain in the backside? STEWART CINK: No, it don't really ever cross your mind. This is part of our job, we do this all the time. I was in LA last week, so I combined the two trips into one. That doesn't really ever cross our mind. It's more about winning and try to advance yourself as far up the World Rankings or the -- you can't win the golf tournament without winning the first match. If you lose you go home and be with your wife and kids a little bit more. DOUG MILNE: Congratulations. We appreciate your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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