SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

April 18, 2026

Stewart Cink

Press Conference

The Concession Golf Club

THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by Stewart Cink here at the 2026 Senior PGA Championship. Stewart, what are your thoughts on your round out there today?

STEWART CINK: It was a pretty solid day for the most part. Didn't really make anything, so I was a little frustrated by putting today.

Putting sometimes, the results are not guaranteed, and I felt like I was doing a lot of good stuff in my putting, but I wasn't really -- well, I wasn't making any putts, and normally you'd say I was just grazing the edge all day. I wasn't doing that. I was just hitting a lot of putts that were misread and some off-speed. It just wasn't a very good day putting.

I don't know if there's anything to be learned by it or not, but tee to green it was good. There was one glaring mistake. I hit it in the water with a sand wedge on eight, and I cost myself a shot there. You know, that's regrettable.

Mostly, I mean, off the tee was good. A lot of good iron shots. A lot of good chances. Two three-putts from just off the green, which were long putts, but a couple of chances to clean up a few shots.

I feel like I got some low-hanging fruit to neaten up before tomorrow, and maybe tomorrow can be a real special day.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Ten guys at least will be within two, three shots. What does that mean for tomorrow and your attitude?

STEWART CINK: I think it helps. I'll be, it looks like, within one shot probably. So it helps that there's a lot of people in there, because it doesn't make it like a man-to-man kind of a contest when you're playing way out in front with somebody else it's like that.

I fully expect someone, probably who is not even on that leaderboard there, who is not even minus-8, below that. Somebody who will probably come up and be ahead of minus-11 before we even tee off.

We'll have to be aggressive. There's good players. The course is difficult, but it's also yielding. It's in such great shape. It's going to take a really good round tomorrow.

I think better than today. I don't think I can expect to shoot the same as today and win this tournament.

Q. The forecast calls for a little bit more wind tomorrow, so how does that play into what you do?

STEWART CINK: I think when it's windy, it favors experience and solid ball-striking. I'm in that category, I think. I would welcome the wind to blow a little bit out of even a different direction, because it would make this puzzle a little more of a puzzle to figure out.

We love doing that, Chris and I, my caddie. We were excited today because there was a little bit of different wind direction. Not much of it, but there was some. Some of the shots off the tee played a little different.

Tomorrow I believe it's supposed to be a northwest wind, which will be a new direction for us and a little bit more of it. The golf course should show us just a little bit different side of itself.

Q. How much do you go back and work on your putting before calling it a day, or do you just because you were hitting decent putts and they weren't going where you wanted, do you --

STEWART CINK: Yeah, there's some days when you go and work on your putting, work on your mechanics. Today is not going to be one of those kind of days. I wouldn't probably go do that before the final round anyway. Just haven't seen a lot of payoff in that.

One thing we can go do is maybe just focus a little bit more on the reading on the practice green and pay a little bit more attention to where the ball is starting, how much it's breaking. You're trying to just -- you know, you're trying to learn all the nuances of a golf course in basically the span of about six days, and it's just not really easy when they keep moving the flags around on the greens.

I'll go and work on a little bit of, like, what I'm seeing and what the ball is doing, but very little mechanics. My process has been pretty good. My rhythm has been good. I just haven't been seeing -- I had a stretch -- for the most part, almost all of my 10-unders come in six holes. I birdie the last three holes the first day and the first three holes Friday. If you take that out, I'm pretty far back in the pack.

I made some good putts during that stretch, but other than that, it's been pretty dry. So I'm going to go and see if maybe there's anything that needs to be adjusted. Could very well be walk off the practice green with adjusting nothing, but we'll go figure that out.

Q. Stewart, we talked yesterday about how 18 may come down obviously the deciding hole. If it's from the northwest, how would the wind play on that?

STEWART CINK: Well, you're just going to have to hit less club off the tee. Less club off the tee, because the wind will be helping you a little bit, and the fairways are running so much that it's going to shorten up the tee ball, but you just can't just hit it as far as you want because it just gets too narrow.

It will probably be one club less, and then the hole location just determines your entire strategy on the second shot. If it's from the left side, you can be aggressive. If it's from the right side, it's a long shot for a hole location that's over by the water, and you know, with the wind today coming from the right, that hole has a lot of challenge.

It's an intricate, complex green. Today the hole was right on the top of a knob. It's just not easy to make putts out there. Not easy to get the ball closes and not easy to make a putt on that hole. The 18th hole, that hole location is just right on top of the knob in the center of the green. Just a curious one there.