Cink still explaining British Opens
AKRON, Ohio -- Stewart Cink does not look like the Grinch. Cink’s a tall, lanky guy whose golf cap covers a dome, and he has a ready smile and a pleasant demeanor. He is even nice when things aren’t going right, which – these says – has been frequently. Until a couple of weeks ago at the British Open. Until that time, the real Grinch was Bob Goalby, at the 1968 Masters, when all he was doing in that final round was golfing his ball and minding his business. And when the day was done, Roberto de Vincenzo had committed that fatal error on his scorecard, got stuck with a score one stroke higher than Goalby’s, thus leaving Goalby the winner. The rules of golf can be cruel. They cost both men. They cost the gentlemanly, popular de Vicenzo a chance to win the Masters, and they cost the innocent Mr. Goalby his good name. The populace was ready to march on the man who swiped the Masters.
And now there was Tom Watson at the age of nearly 60, playing the 2009 British Open as though it were one of the five he’d won a century ago. He was set to win No. 6, until he stumbled to a bogey at the final hole and slipped into a tie with Cink, who had already finished. As with Goalby, Cink’s sins were golfing his own ball and minding his own business. He beat Watson in a playoff and took the British Open, his first major and his career sixth win.
Cink has come to Firestone Country Club for the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, which he won in 2004, and he comes either loaded for bear or else ill-equipped. Apart from the British Open win and two top-10 finishes earlier, his season has been a surprising bunch of high double-digit finishes. It’s his first outing since the British Open in mid-July, and he’s still explaining it, and chances are he will be doing that for a while, though the episode is light years different from Goalby’s.
“I know that most people were rooting for Tom Watson because of the sentimental value of the story,” Cink said. “That’s understandable.” But at least he hasn’t been getting hate mail, as Goalby did. There were some interesting comments, though. Bordering on confessions, it seems. Like little guilt trips.
“Some have been pretty funny," Cink said. “[like] ‘I was rooting for Tom, but when it looked like you were going to win, I was really behind you.’ I get a kick out of that. It was nice to hear they were actually pulling for me at some point.”
What does a British Open champ do on his time off? Apart from dropping in on Dave Letterman? For Cink, it was a two-stop flight to a small town in Montana, a 2 1/2 –hour drive to Glacier National Park, where not everybody recognized him.
“We just go out there and hike the trails and raft the rivers and sip on the beers,” Cink said.
But he didn’t take the British Open trophy with him, the replica of the old wine jug. It complicated at one of his impromptu receptions. They needed a traffic manager for the drink list.
“It was a bar scene, and so we got there that night with the jug,” Cink said. “It was almost mayhem in there. There were a lot of people who wanted to take a sip out of it.
“The first one was Guiness. That was my choice. I reserved the right to make the first choice.”
Then there was Coke for the kids, the Harp, some wine. One of his friends took over.
“You don’t worry about it,” the guy said.
“He just went to the bar and filled it up,” Cink said. “Come to think of it, I don’t even know where the tab went on that.”
There was that one sticky moment during the British Open, when there seemed to be a rules question.
“Well, whenever I’m in contention, or [winning], there’s always a rules discussion,” Cink said.
This one was defused in a hurry. It came at the 17th green, when Cink blasted out of a bunker to about 6 feet past the hole, and the wind blew his ball as he was marking it. He knew he was OK under the rules, he said, but he summoned a rules official anyway, just to make sure the man knew what had taken place. Then the rules guy got nervous, and sure enough, a number of reviews and discussions followed.
Then Cink was a little late getting to the tee for the playoff. Perhaps, someone said, the rules issue was still in doubt?
“No,” Cink said. “I had to go to the Porta-John.”
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