U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 25, 2025

Stewart Cink

The Broadmoor (East Course)

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Stewart Cink, 2009 Open champion. You've had a nice start to the year. You had the win down in Houston. Talk a little bit about the state of your game and how you feel coming into this week.

STEWART CINK: It's been pretty consistent this year as far as high finishes. One win, yeah, would have loved to have a few more, but it's not easy to win. I'm excited about playing in this tournament for the first time. Unfortunately, I had to miss the last couple when I was eligible, but it's a good place to start right here.

Broadmoor is a cool place. Golf course is really neat. I love being in this part of the world. My dad is from right here not too far away, so it's kind of in my DNA. I just love being here and looking forward to it.

Q. You mentioned you've been playing well. First U.S. Senior Open this week, but you've played in 23 U.S. Opens before. What have you come to expect from a USGA Championship in terms of toughness and what you get out on the course?

STEWART CINK: I think you can't really pin down what to expect. You just have to be ready for the unexpected. So it flips your question around.

Just kind of know there's going to be hole locations that you might not have expected when you're doing your prep, and the golf course is probably going to change a lot, especially here with less humidity. We've got rain, but I think it can dry out with sunshine very quickly.

I haven't seen the golf course very much. In fact, there's one hole I haven't seen at all yet, which is going to be interesting to play in a major on a hole I've never played. I've got a great caddie, Chris Jones, and he's done his homework.

I look forward to the challenge. Week in and week out, the play on the PGA TOUR Champions is excellent, and this week we've got an even bigger field and the best of the best. It's awesome.

Q. The holes you have seen, what kind of skills do you think are going to be necessary to do well at the Broadmoor?

STEWART CINK: I think power is important here because you can take advantage of the altitude. That's a key factor around this area. Ball speed and high trajectory just makes the course shorter. Relative to other players who might hit it lower and maybe not as fast, you just gain like an exponential type of distance when you hit it high and far. So that's going to be a lot of fun.

It's not the narrowest course I've seen for the USGA setups, but the rough is thick. If you drive it far off the tee, you've got shorter shots to the screen. It's just advantage upon advantage.

The real difficult part of this course is obviously the greens. I know everyone said that, and it's true. The greens are very undulating, they're fast. There's amazing push from the mountain towards the valley here that sometimes just defies your eyesight.

You have to trust what you know to be right. You feel it in your feet when you're out there. You have to read greens with a lot more of your senses than just your eyes and your memory.

Q. You mentioned the altitude and you might gain some exponential growth if you hit it high and far. How do you adjust for that as someone who does kind of hit it high and far? Is there a percentage or kind of a flat rate? What do you do as you're sort of calculating your shots in?

STEWART CINK: It's a percentage, and because I was not a math major, I like the number 10 percent because it's real easy to do math that way. But I think we're probably doing a little bit more than 10 percent when it's hot.

We're not going to adjust with math, like 11 or 12 percent range, we're just going to take it down 10 and kind of feel the adjustments from there and maybe just bump our club yardages up a little bit.

We try to work off sea level numbers because that's what we do all the time. I'm not adjusting anything as far as equipment or the way I'm playing or hitting shots because my game is already kind of set up for that kind of optimal launch anyway. Optimal launch at sea level is also optimal launch in Colorado Springs. It's an adjustment in numbers, and other than that, your feel and your senses just take over, and you try to be an athlete out there.

It's just a different piece of the puzzle here that you don't see a lot of other places. It just makes it a little bit more interesting.

Q. You mentioned your dad is from here originally. Other than playing Castle Pines, have you spent much time here in Colorado in this area?

STEWART CINK: I haven't spent a ton of time, my dad is from a place called Estes Park, which is northwest of Denver up in the mountains. We've been there a few times. My dad showed us around his old stamping grounds.

Yes, I played at The International. It's probably my favorite tournament of my whole career up there. I had one win on the Korn Ferry Tour in the Denver area in 1996, and I played well in Mexico City a few times. It's not Denver, but it's higher even. So I just have adapted well to high altitude play. I'm hoping that will translate into a good finish here.

Q. Where does this course rank as far as a course you've played on as far as just difficulty?

STEWART CINK: It's a difficult course, but it's a different kind of difficulty than most of the USGA setups I've seen. You've got to remember, this is my first U.S. Senior Open. All my previous 23 USGA Championships have been U.S. Opens, which are the pinnacle of the most difficult setups.

This one is a very difficult setup, and it looks like it's been set up for players 50 years old and older. So it's not the longest course I've ever played. The balls go a long way. It's not the narrowest. The rough's not the thickest. But it's all about craft and patience and the greens. The feel and reading the greens and trust.

There's going to be some putts that just make you look silly out there. So it's that kind of difficulty. It's not a brute force difficulty like you see at Oakmont or places like that.

Q. Have you felt more comfortable this year having devoted all your time to this Tour as opposed to kind of going back and forth?

STEWART CINK: I wouldn't say so. I felt comfortable playing out here ever since I started when I turned 50, but I'm enjoying it more because now I'm playing a full schedule out here and reuniting even more with the guys and gals that I know from the years gone by.

I really don't miss playing on the PGA TOUR that much. It's nice to play for like really huge purses, but it's nice to be out here. I like playing PGA TOUR Champions golf. It's fun. It's new courses mostly, and I get to see new towns. It's a great way to sort of sunset your career. I hope that sunset lasts a long time.

Q. I know it's been almost 30 years, but what do you remember about your win at Riverdale Dunes, if anything?

STEWART CINK: It was in the Denver area (laughter).

Riverdale Dunes is -- I do actually remember some of it. I don't know if it's a Pete Dye course, but it's a Dye course, from the Dye family, Pete Dye. I remember that. My wife got in an altercation with a marshal, I remember that. But I don't remember that much. It was a long time ago.

It was the tournament that pretty much sealed my moving on as No. 1 to the PGA TOUR the next year.

Q. Despite not being able to see all 18 holes on the course and despite the weather, what's your confidence level going into tomorrow?

STEWART CINK: It's high. I feel like I've got -- my skill set adapts to this course very well. I have a lot of confidence here, and I just feel like -- I'm just looking forward to having some fun playing. I love playing tournament golf against the best guys that are my age. It's just another chance to do that, and it's a new venue. This tournament means an awful lot to all of us.

Q. A little afternoon rain the last two days. Do you hope for more? Does that make the greens a little more playable?

STEWART CINK: No. They're already very playable after the rain yesterday. I don't hope for rain. I want it to become less playable. I want it to be hard and fast and really tricky and more difficult. It's better for me if the greens won't hold a golf ball because I can hold from closer up to the green than a lot of the other players.

I have a little bit of an advantage in that department, so, no, I don't want rain. I want it to get sunny and windy and dry and be difficult.