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MASTERS TOURNAMENTApril 5, 2012Stewart CinkAUGUSTA, GEORGIA STEWART CINK: Every good day you take confidence from. I mean, I had a lot of really good shots today. There's not a lot of guys in the field that hit better than I did today. I played real well. I didn't take advantage of some opportunities out there, but overall I was pleased with today. Q. How many birdie putts were there today? STEWART CINK: I only missed probably ‑‑ probably missed three greens, maybe not even that. Q. Right. STEWART CINK: I don't know. I'd have to go out and count. I didn't miss many greens at all, and I hit some close, too. Q. Right. STEWART CINK: I did make some. Even if you hit the greens, you are going to have still some eight or ten foot par putts. I had a couple of those and I made them. I didn't make the birdie putts, made the par putts. Q. You were hitting so many greens in play. Was that relative to the swing change that you were fixing to make or that you have been making and were you anxious to see what they would do on this golf course? STEWART CINK: I'm always anxious to see what they do, but it's not because it's the Masters. Every golf tournament, every day I practice, I'm anxious to see what's going to happen. I'm still not totally familiar, but I'm getting there. A day like today is a good one to put this the memory banks and keep there and draw some confidence on. You know, it was definitely a really, really good ball striking round. Probably one of the best I've had here at this tournament. Q. When is the last time you struck the ball as well as today? STEWART CINK: There's been a few rounds this year like this, but today I felt a lot more controlled than I have of very recently. It was just a good day. I felt really good out there. I felt strong. I was hitting the ball in the middle of the club face. I'm pleased. Q. On 12, was that just a slight mis‑hit or under club? STEWART CINK: It was just a ‑‑ 12, that yardage today was very awkward for me. It's just not a full shot at all. I just made the wrong mistake. I should have just been probably aiming for the back edge of the green and trying to just throw one back there. If it goes in the bunker, so be it. I tried to get a little too cute with it and didn't execute real well. A two shot penalty is just a breath away out here with almost any shot, certainly on 12. Q. Yesterday you talked about how you wanted to do what you know you should do rather than what you shouldn't do. Did you follow that today? STEWART CINK: Well, today I think the conditions allowed that. The fairways were ‑‑ they were very wet and the ball was not going anywhere when it land. It played long, but it also played wide. The fairways were wide. The greens were soft too. You pretty much could hit it ‑‑ you could fly it to wherever you want, almost no wind. It was just the perfect day for scoring, couple of tougher pins. I think the biggest challenge out there is the mud on the golf ball. Q. Was that an issue at all? STEWART CINK: It was a huge issue. All day it was a huge issue. It just takes a lot of guts to aim away from some of these greens and hit it right towards the trouble when you know what's waiting in the ball doesn't take the mud effect. It's an inexact science. Q. (Inaudible)? STEWART CINK: Yeah, the school of bogeys, the school of bogeys teaches you how to read the mud. It's not like reading the greens. There's no way to be at reading mud. You just hope it works. Some days ‑‑ some shots it knock it is ball way off line and some days it doesn't do anything to the ball. It's unpredictable. Q. There were two or three you read it right today and played it way wider than you thought? STEWART CINK: Yeah, you have to give yourself a bigger margin for error when there is a lot of mud on the ball. Q. Was there any holes like that? STEWART CINK: 13, today I had mud a huge chunk on the right side of the ball, and that means it goes left. What do you do? Do you aim way right to have green on 13? No, you can't. If that ball goes straight, you are dead. So I aimed in the middle of the green and it shot straight left and hit the tree right in front of me. And I actually got pretty lucky that it went through the pine tree and got up there near the front edge of the green. I made 5, but ‑‑ that kind of shot, you don't want mud on your ball on 13 or 11. There's shots you don't want mud on your golf ball. Q. Did it get any better as the day went on? STEWART CINK: No. It's the same. It's going to be quite muddy, I think all the way. Q. How many do you think you had today? STEWART CINK: How many mud shots? I had four really good ones where I had to really think about it. Stricker was ‑‑ he had three or four early in the round and it was getting to him a little bit. He started looking at my ball in No. 9 fairway and seeing if I was getting mud on it. I guess the brand of golf ball is different. I have been there too, I have looked at the other guys in my group to see if they are getting mud. Sometimes it feels like you are the only one getting it. Q. Were you happy with the way you putted? STEWART CINK: I had a lot of really good putts. I could have made them. There's a couple I would like to have back, like 17 and 9. But for the most part, no, I putted really well. They just didn't all go in. Q. You read the greens better than you read the mud? STEWART CINK: Yeah. Well, reading the greens is a lot more of an exact science, not totally. Q. The putt on 17 didn't look good, Stewart. You said you didn't ‑‑ STEWART CINK: Yeah, that's because ‑‑ I watched Steve's putt there on 17 and it kind of went right and I didn't expect it to. So then I started looking for something to make mine go right a little bit, too. Q. You jumped over the putter face? STEWART CINK: Yeah. And I played ‑‑ I probably should have played right. I played it more like inside left and it broke left. It wasn't very pretty. Q. When you look at the forecast and hear it's going to rain, do you think to yourself going off in the morning is advantage? STEWART CINK: Not really. They can control a lot around this golf course, even it does rain. They can turn the sub air on at night. They can put the pin in some really, really hard places, even if they are soft. I don't know. You just ‑‑ you don't really start your game plan on this course until you get to the first green and start figuring it out. Q. With all that you have come through (inaudible)? STEWART CINK: It would be awesome. It would be awesome. I'm working towards trying to be the best player that I have ever been. The last couple of years I haven't shown that but if it would turn around here, that would be awesome. If it would turn around in the year, that would be awesome. I just want it to turn around. Q. Being in Georgia ‑‑ STEWART CINK: To me this is pinnacle professional golf right here, the Masters. Living here might enhance that opinion, but I think if I lived on Marches it would still be the pinnacle professional golf course. Q. Is this the most frustrating time in your career? You are going through swing coaches and tweaking? STEWART CINK: The swing coaches haven't been frustrating, just golf period. I'm just ‑‑ I'm nearly ‑‑ I really want to have some good finishes and get in contention for some tournament wins. That's why I'm playing golf out here after 16 years and that's the frustrating part. Q. I don't know if there is an easy way to summarize this. When you go into a tournament do you think I have got this figured out? STEWART CINK: No. I mean, what I'm working on in my swing without getting too technical, intuitively I trust it and I can do it repetitively on the range. The range is emotionless. When you go out there and you have got a creek left or you have got a pin placement up on the point, like on 6, emotion starts to feel your soul and you hit the shots with emotion and emotionally I haven't learned to trust. It's going to take rounds like today where I can emotionally trust it. It's going to take more than just one. That's why I keep saying it's a work in progress. Q. So this isn't physical, it's totally mental? STEWART CINK: Well, no. It's physical, too. The change is totally physical. But you have to learn to trust it when it matters. I don't know if you understand how much it matters and to Lucas and all the golfers. It matters a lot to us. It's like almost life and death out here for us. It matters. But emotionally, the game of golf kind of treats us kind of rough sometimes. And if you don't trust what you are doing, you know, subconsciously, you can't lie to your subconscious. Your body is not going to accept it. That's the challenge. Q. When did you ‑‑ this is going back. When did you first start to feel that things were starting to slip a little bit? STEWART CINK: The second half of 2008. I played great the first half of 2008 and then everything disappeared. I got in some really bad habits and have had a difficult time getting out of them or even identifying them. I finally did identify what I was doing wrong and really attacked it. So that's where we are. Q. (Inaudible)? STEWART CINK: The open was kind of a one off week where I played really off for one week. But it was in the middle of 2009, a year that I played poorly except for that week. Q. Had you already decided that maybe after that year you were going to have to start to change things? STEWART CINK: I didn't want to have to change things, but I knew at some point I knew that even the shots I hit really well, I knew I was getting away with something. I knew I could hit ten in a row beautifully, but I always knew in my heart that there was one waiting that could go anywhere. I didn't know what the problem was. Q. I was going to say, you are not old. STEWART CINK: I'm not old but I've been out here a long time. This is my 16th year on the Tour. I feel like I'm very, very seasoned for a 38‑year‑old. Q. And when you say 20, 21, 22 year old kids like Rory McIlroy or whatever, do you feel older? STEWART CINK: Of course I do. That's natural. But I remember being that age, too. I was out here when I was 23 and I won my rookie year. I had a lot of really great finishes and I was fare fear less. The game, it teaches you ‑‑ it gives you some scar tissue over a long period Q. You still fearless or no? STEWART CINK: No. I'd like to be totally fearless, but that's why we have sports psychologists. Q. What tweak summarizes ‑‑ STEWART CINK: I've changed my swing coach two times over the last three years. Q. Most recently was when again? STEWART CINK: About ten months ago. Q. What's the name of your current guy? STEWART CINK: Chris O' Connell. Q. How's he been? STEWART CINK: He's excellent. He's the one that's helped me make the biggest change, the real substantial change to try to eradicate the bad mistakes I was making. I was really putting myself at a disadvantage before I even teed off just with mechanics. You know, I know the questions are going to keep coming about why would you change if you just won a major. I don't really care about the questions. I know that I wasn't playing well and my game was doing this spiraling downhill. If I didn't stop it I was just going to disappear. I had a choice to make. To me the only choice ‑‑ Q. Without getting too technical, what has Chris done? STEWART CINK: Basically, I'm just trying to change the path of my swing. My path got to much (inaudible). I was trying to time the club face rotating at the ball. You can imagine a club face doing this after impact. Closing quickly through impact is not very ‑‑ so I'm trying to get my path more straight on at zero and no rotation. Q. Some of the analysts have questioned why would you make a change? STEWART CINK: The thing about the analysts is not one of them has ever asked me about it. That bothers me a little bit. It's their job to talk and to describe our action and all of our decisions and all that stuff. That's fine. But not one of them has ever asked me about it. I would be totally happy to sit down with them for one minute and one hour and discuss it all if they want to, but they haven't talked to it about me. If they do their homework, they would know. They understand. There's a reason they are former players. They are not current players. Change is part of the game. It's no fun when you go through it, but it is fun when you see it pay off. Q. Is there any doubt, any question if your mind that you can get back to the level ‑‑ STEWART CINK: Of course there's doubt. Of course. Q. On a scale of one to ten? STEWART CINK: I don't know. If there is any doubt, it's a ten. That's what I think about doubt. Q. That's what prevents you from being completely fearless, right? STEWART CINK: Well, that. The years of scar tissue. No, I believe in what I'm doing, but of course I have no crystal ball to know. The game unfolds differently in front of us every single day. I love playing golf and I love the challenge of it. Pretty soon I hope to be back playing the kind of golf I know I'm capable of playing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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