|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PNC FATHER/SON CHALLENGEDecember 15, 2013Connor CinkStewart CinkORLANDO, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: We'd like the welcome the winners of the 2013 PNC Father‑Son Challenge, Stewart and Connor Cink. Congratulations on your win. STEWART CINK: Thank you. THE MODERATOR: You overtake the Elkingtons down the stretch with nine 3s on the back none, shooting 27 and a final round 61 to win. Just a couple thoughts about your victory. Stewart, I know it's special for you to be here for the first time. STEWART CINK: Yeah, it was special to be here with Connor. We really hadn't played that much golf together over the last probably six or seven years. We both had to kind of learn our way around out there. I had to learn his game a little bit, and I think Connor had to learn his game, too. So we did, and he hit a lot of fairways. He was a huge help. Made some unbelievable putts. I mean, just poured it over the front edge out there. On the back nine there was nothing he couldn't do right. It was great to have such a partner, and I was honored just to walk alongside of him. CONNOR CINK: And this guy did pretty well, too. (Laughter.) THE MODERATOR: Connor, your thoughts. CONNOR CINK: I had a great time. Every single shot dad was in my head telling me to take it easy. We're out here to have fun. Putts were falling. I was real happy with that, but I was real confident, because I knew that if I could give it a good try at it then he would come behind and give it equally and more. I mean, for every putt that I made, he made just as many and then more. And then hitting really good shots, I don't know, the game plan was for me to get comfortably fairway‑green and for him to get aggressive. We played off each other like that pretty well. MODERATOR: You guys were three back after the third hole. In a scramble, that's a pretty tall order most of the time. Talk about that and how you rallied to win. STEWART CINK: I knew we were behind, but I think it took the pressure off a little bit that we got behind early, because we took on roles of being chasers instead of being the protecting ones. The one thing we had going for us was that we had more holes to play than anybody else out there than except for the Elkingtons. And being in the last group, we had we had more chances at the birdies. Obviously looking at the red on the scoreboard, this is all about birdies and eagles. We just hit our stride out there. We started off rough, but once we birdied the par‑5 on the front, No. 5, it just all seemed to feel right again. Then we ran off a bunch of birdies after that, and the back nine was just a blur. MODERATOR: Stewart, take us through that stretch of 13 through 16 where you went birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie. STEWART CINK: 13, yeah, we hit it in the rough, but we were able to get it up there close. Connor read the putt beautifully. I just stayed out of the way. He had his lines picked out. I was watching where the ball rolled, and it didn't miss his mark by even like an eighth of an inch. It was just perfect speed, perfect right over the mark, and went right in the center of the hole. THE MODERATOR: How far? STEWART CINK: About a 15‑footer. And then the par‑5, 14, we got a good drive out there. He hit a good second shot. It freed my up again to hit it at the green and play aggressively. I hit a good shot on the green about 30 feet there, straight downhill putt, and, again, just kind of stayed out of the way. He trusted his reads all day and yesterday, too. I remember asking him halfway to the hole, Do you like it? Because i could see his eyes were just all over the ball. He was so intense on watching the ball. He didn't answer me, but that's not only time I ask him questions and he doesn't answer me. Once I saw him taking a step to the hole I knew it was in. Wow. The hole before that he said, That's the putt I'm going to remember. I'm going to remember that putt right there this week, and then he goes and makes a 30‑footer for eagle on the next hole. 15, Connor actually did miss a putt. We had about a 20‑footer there. But he showed me a good line and then I made it. 16, we hit it in there. I hit a good second shot. Actually got a little help from Sam Elkington's ball, because my ball was spinning back to the left and it glanced off his ball and kind of angled more towards the hole. So instead of having an 8‑footer we had about a 5‑footer. I was able to knock that one in. I felt pretty good after that about our chances. 17 and 18 are both dangerous. 18 anything can happen. When their ball did not finish on the green on 18, I felt like we had a pretty good chance. I just needed to hit a good iron shot, and I hit a really good approach into 18, right where I was looking. We were probably not going to 3‑putt from there. We ended up 1‑putting. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Connor, just the most important question: Does the belt stay with your father or go back to Clemson with you? CONNOR CINK: I'm going to have to show it off a little bit. I think it's coming back with me. Q. Is that a nice dorm room decoration? CONNOR CINK: Oh, yeah. STEWART CINK: There are some good stories about that belt now, too. Q. How old are you, Connor? CONNOR CINK: 20. Q. How old were you when your dad won in 2009? CONNOR CINK: Let's see, 17, 16. STEWART CINK: Almost 16. CONNOR CINK: 16. Q. Do you have any memories from that day? He sank the 12‑footer on the 72nd hole before the playoff. CONNOR CINK: I just remember thinking, This is the most incredible thing. I've believed in him playing and all that kind of stuff all through, but then watching him just almost go unconscious and just knock down these ridiculous shots one after another, it was surreal. It was literally like watching history be made. Especially going into 18. Tom went over the back. I just remember thinking, Man, we've got a shot at this. He's got a shot at this. Then the playoff was just great, going pretty one way. Afterwards just being like, Wow. This actually just happened. He did this. That was my one memory. Wow, he did it. STEWART CINK: I felt the same way. (Laughter.) Q. Now, is this memory, you know, a pretty solid second to that? CONNOR CINK: I would say so. I know it's one of the bigger ones in his career; it's definitely the biggest in mine. I would say that. Q. What was the length on the eagle putt on 18? STEWART CINK: Around 20 feet, 22 feet, something like that. Like I told my caddie out there, Matt Hall, it's pretty unusual to have a putt to win a golf tournament when the worse you know you're going to have is this far, because that's how close he hit it. I had a free run at a 22‑footer to win. Worst case, I hit it six feet past and I pick up. That's a nice feeling. To see the ball go in the middle was obviously also very cool. Q. Was it nine one‑putts on the back? STEWART CINK: Yeah, I think it was, because we ‑‑ no, no, we 2‑putted on 17. Missed our birdie putt there. Had about a 12‑footer and missed it. Yeah, the other par‑3 we missed the green just on the back fringe and we 2‑putted from off the green. We did make the putt from off the green on 16, so it was nine putts, not nine one‑putts. Is that right? Yeah. Q. Just off the green on 16? STEWART CINK: It was an inch off from 20 feet. CONNOR CINK: Quarter inch. STEWART CINK: Counts as a zero putt statistically. Q. Yeah, I know. I got the 20‑footer on 15. STEWART CINK: No, no, you're right. 15, not 16. 15. Q. And just the way that he played ‑ I mean, Steve Elkington was kind of raving about it ‑ what are your general sentiments about the away he manned up, as Steve put it? STEWART CINK: I'm telling you, I don't think people realize how ‑‑ I think it's pretty monumental. Connor doesn't play golf. We're not talking about a kid who plays in college or has played on the various tours and stuff like that. He hasn't played 30 rounds since he was 14 years old. I mean, he doesn't play golf. He's very talented though in a lot of his sports. Very athletically advanced. It was cool to watch him learn that he was curving the ball a little bit to the right with his 3‑wood. Hit his 3‑wood on every hole and play it. He didn't try to tweak and figure out what he was doing wrong. He just said, Okay, this is what I'm doing, and I'm going to do it. He kept on doing it and kept hitting it in the fairway. It's such a load of pressure off when your partner is down the fairway anywhere from 240 to 260. I was driving the ball great with my driver. I could just tee it up with no consequences whatsoever and hit it hard. I mean, be nice to always have that in your back pocket all the time playing. It was a huge advantage for us to have him in the fairway a lot. Q. Connor, what was your secret? How did you put it together like that with so little experience? CONNOR CINK: Oh, man, I have no idea. My caddie for the week really helped me on the range the day before we started playing just kind of going through shots, telling me what I was doing right, what I was doing wrong. After hitting a couple balls I just kind of realized things I was doing consistently and things that I wasn't. I tried to play to those consistencies as much as possible. Like he was saying with the 3‑wood. It was going off to the right, so instead of trying to keep it straight, just aim a little bit left. Irons were going a little bit left and a little bit right. I was pulling some putts. Aim a little bit further to the right. I don't know, instead of trying to fix things I just tried to be as consistent as I could and really just set it up so that I could play safe and so that he could get aggressive with it and kind of get out of his way. Q. Last thing, given your lack of rounds, do you even have a handicap? CONNOR CINK: I don't think so. STEWART CINK: Never has had one. Q. Must be nice. STEWART CINK: I think if he turned in scores all the time probably about a 10 handicap. CONNOR CINK: Yeah. STEWART CINK: The thing with not playing ever, even though he's really good at almost everything he does, you know, figuring out where the bottom‑out part of the golf swing is with your irons and wedges, he still hits a lot of fat shots and thin shots with his irons. I can see just in two days how much better his iron context started getting. The iron shots he hit on the back none were flushed. I mean, they were solid. They sound like TOUR player iron shots. Yesterday morning on the front nine they didn't sound that way. So I can see him getting better and better. And it'll probably be another six months before he plays golf again. CONNOR CINK: Scramble golf is real nice, because as soon as one person does bad, hopefully the other person will do well so the bad shots are kind of overshadowed. That helped, I guess. Q. Stewart, do you put the pressure on now and say, We'll keep playing together until we don't win again; get it of off your brother. STEWART CINK: I don't know. We picked Connor this year. I picked him. I invited him based on his schedule. He was out of exams, and Reagan has exams coming up starting tomorrow, so didn't really make much sense for him. We don't know the schedule next year, but hopefully we'll get to defend our title. There is a chance that maybe Reagan will get to tee it up, too. CONNOR CINK: We'll (indiscernible) before. Q. You reached the Nicklaus point. He goes to the bench and finds another kid. STEWART CINK: Yeah, I don't have an A and a B kid; I have two A of kids. It will be the same situation next year with Reagan. CONNOR CINK: Don't let him tell you that. I'm the A of kid. Or B kid, actually, now that I'm thinking about it. STEWART CINK: We'll see. When the time comes next year, I don't know. I think we'll play it again. CONNOR CINK: Little brother is definitely the better golfer. That'll make things a little bit interesting returning back. STEWART CINK: He plays a little bit more, but you guys always seem to go down to the wire. Q. Connor, if you played 30 rounds golf or whatever it is since age 14, what interested you more than golf? CONNOR CINK: I played ice hockey growing up a lot. I played travel hockey until I was about 18 years old. Then I picked up basketball, but I picked it up too late to be serious with it. I play recreationally with my friends. But after this week I might try to hit the links a little bit more often seeing as, you know, I had this much fun out here with it. STEWART CINK: I think he might have discovered something in there he didn't know was in there, yeah. Q. I was going to say, if the engineering thing doesn't work out... STEWART CINK: A lot of players out on TOUR would probably ask you to putt for them, I know that. Q. Connor, you seem so relaxed and comfortable with the galleries and the cameras all week long. Any advice that your father gave you at the beginning of the this week that put you more at ease in front of all that? CONNOR CINK: He's been saying, even from before the tournament started, just to have fun out there like I was playing every round of golf that I've played with my dad. Just play another one. That helped a lot. Whenever I started feeling nerves, I would look over here and am just playing golf with my dad, like I have been. That was a lot. I was pretty nervous throughout the entire time, but that was another thing. There were a couple holes where I would get up to the tee‑‑ after the make on 14, got up to the 15th tee and was feeling excited because I just made that putt. I was addressing the ball, and he came up and grabbed me and was like, Hey, whoa, that's awesome. Make sure you're in this shot. That stuck with me the rest of the round, just kind of keep my head on. It's about this shot, not about the last or the next. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations to you both. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|