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FORD CHAMPIONSHIP AT DORAL

March 4, 2005

Stewart Cink

DORAL, FLORIDA

TODD BUDNICK: We thank Stewart Cink for coming in after a 7-under 65 today that has you at 9-under through 36 holes. Got off to a great start there with five birdies on your front nine all towards the back. Talk about that.

STEWART CINK: Well, I did. I got off to a good start today and I was just really comfortable on the greens. I don't think I had any putts that didn't have a chance to go. There was a lot that didn't make it but all of them were hitting, grazing the edges if they didn't go in. It was one of those days it was a lot of fun to be a PGA TOUR player.

TODD BUDNICK: The leaderboard is shaping up to be what it was built at, a lot of the top players that seem to be rising to the top, talk about heading into the weekend and what that means for you and the tournament.

STEWART CINK: I think that means the most for the fans, the spectators and the television viewers. It's exactly what they hoped for and what Ford hopes for, I'm sure the top players are all up there right at the very top and it's going to be a great dogfight. This golf course brings out the best out of the best players and it's doing that this week and it will continue to do it over the weekend I believe.

TODD BUDNICK: You've had some success here with five Top-25s in seven appearances and a T-4 in '98. What is it that you generally like about the course?

STEWART CINK: It used to be that it was a ball-striker's type course, that you have to drive it in play and manage your game from tee-to-green real well and that was the strength of my game and now I've flip-flopped and I've really become one of the best putters out here.

So, I don't know, I guess you have to still mentally be ready for any kind of conditions here. For instance, you get a day like today where it feels like it does more in Atlanta where I live than you would think for south Florida. But you have to be prepared for that and it may get hot over the weekend, we'll see.

I just feel comfortable playing here, coming from the West Coast. I'm excited to be back east again and playing on bermuda. It's my favorite grass to play on and I'm always excited to come down and play here.

Q. When did you switch to the belly again? I'm sorry to ask you that question.

STEWART CINK: About 2 1/2 years ago.

Q. You were talking outside with Vince Cellini about your different psychological bent, can you sort of reiterate some of that and you talked about embracing fears versus running away from it, which sounds like psychology talk.

STEWART CINK: The easiest way to describe it is to put it this way: I used to work with a sports psychologist and whenever I would have anxiety or fears, for instance, whenever there is water or OB down one side it's tight and you get cautious. The sports psychologist will tell you to fill your minds with nothing but thoughts about the target and your swing and put enough in your mind where you don't have enough room to think about the OB or whatever it is that's troubling you. That worked with me for a little while but somewhere in my swing I was still thinking about my target, except, just don't go there. It produces some pretty ugly shots.

So what I try to do is sort of do the opposite of that and think about why do you get afraid of hitting the ball in the water out-of-bounds. Really, all it amounts to is just a stroke or two, and what golf does to you is it messes with your sense of self and your self-esteem. That's what golfers do when they start to protect themselves against going in the water or 3-putting or something like that, is they really are protecting the way they feel about themselves and the way they measure up against either players or you and your foursome.

That's what I mean by embracing the fear and trying to figure out why it's there so that I can deal with it the proper way instead of just shoving it off to the side. Because if you shove it away by filling your mind with other thoughts, it's still there, you're just trying to ignore it. The subconscious will never be able to do that.

Q. So who are you seeing now that's sort of put you on this different track?

STEWART CINK: The guy I talk to now is called Preston Waddington, he's a psychoanalyst, not a sports guy, so he's sort of a whole life guy, so for me since my life includes golf, he's a golf guy for me.

Q. So yesterday when you dumped two in the water, it wasn't like it was four years ago, that didn't live with you to today's rounds, did it?

STEWART CINK: No, it lived with me for about an hour. (Laughter.) You know what, it cost me though because there's great burgers down there after the round and it cost me a burger yesterday because I was in too bad of a mood to eat. Today I might have two.

No, but seriously, a hole like that, that's a really hard hole, and I hit a bad shot at the worst possible time, left off the tee there. I hit the ball good off the tee all day and it's just one of those things that just happens. A hole like that can come up and grab you. You don't have to hit any bad shots on the hole and you can still make a triple.

I just, you know, I made about an 8-footer for triple-bogey there yesterday and I told my caddie walking off the green, I said, there's momentum right there. I don't care what you make your putt for on the last hole, if you make an 8-footer on the last hole, it was momentum. In my case, it was a triple-bogey and it gave me some motivation to go out and shoot 65.

Q. Some athletes say fear of failure will drive them but you're sort of the opposite of that. You're embracing that fear instead of allowing it to drive you.

STEWART CINK: Believe me, I don't want to fail. I just decided a few years ago that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to play golf being afraid of anything. You know, if I hit a shot in the water, okay, so I'll just -- like yesterday, I'll just go on and play my next shot. I don't like doing it. I'm not trying to fool myself into thinking that everything is rosy and rainbow and all that if I hit one in the water and make triple. It cost me a burger yesterday. That's big time. I don't miss too many meals.

I realize that it wasn't doing me a whole lot of good to go out there and be afraid or be anxious on the greens, worried about a 3-putt. You know, I just decided to do away with all of that and when I got into the process of doing away with it, it was more difficult than I thought it was going to be, it wasn't just turning off the light switch and the fear was gone. It wasn't like that at all. I really decided to get to the root of it and understand where the fear came from and when you really think about where the fear comes from out there, fear of failure is one thing, I think it's sort of tied in with fear of OB or fear of 3-putting in front of everybody. It starts to seem a little bit silly, being a golfer and worried about a bad shot is where your fears are coming from.

To me, just being afraid of playing golf really started just to be pretty silly and I decided I didn't want to be silly.

Q. When did you start kind of taking this new track or working with this particular guy roughly?

STEWART CINK: I think it was 2002 at the Masters, the week before I had putted really horribly and missed the cut in my home tournament there at BellSouth. I called my coach up and said, listen, I've got some problems; I'm really nervous, I'm anxious, I explained to him all the stuff. We went and saw my sports psychologist at the time and he told me that if you don't have butterflies, then that's when something is wrong and that was the last time I ever talked to him about golf because I knew it wasn't butterflies. I've had butterflies before and that was a good thing; this was not butterflies. I got my coach to hook me up with a guy who was one of his students down here in Fort Lauderdale and it worked out really well right from the beginning and I've been with him now pretty much every week with the odd vacation week since then.

Q. Just talk on the phone and do a little check-in?

STEWART CINK: On the phone only. I met him one time but I don't know what he looks like. If he walked in the room right now, I wouldn't know him. Met him down at the golf course one day but it was before we worked. Now it's just a phone deal.

Q. So he's out of Fort Lauderdale?

STEWART CINK: Yes.

Q. Does he have any other sports clients?

STEWART CINK: Yes, he does have a few other golfers.

Q. Does this work more for a golfer because when you look at a tournament leaderboard, there is one winner and everything else is varying degrees of failure?

STEWART CINK: Yeah, but also a lot of success in there. Finishing high these days against these fields, there's a lot of success mixed in with the failure. So I don't really see second, third, fourth place as failing. You know, that's just me. I'm an individual who doesn't really see it that way. Other players may see it that way, but I don't. I think you've got to do a really good job out here this week to finish in the top four or five.

Q. The 2001 U.S. Open, did that factor in?

STEWART CINK: It did, but more of a product of how I was feeling. Like the short putt I missed on the last hole, that was a product of the way I was feeling. That was just a step along the way of me actually waking up and realizing, hey, something is going on with me that's not good. But that's not the root of it. That's just -- that was a symptom of it.

Q. So that was just another thing that happened to you?

STEWART CINK: Yeah.

Q. Were you nervous over that putt other than butterflies?

STEWART CINK: Oddly, I had a putt right before that to, what I thought, was to force the U.S. Open into a playoff, a par putt of about ten feet and I had butterflies but I wasn't nervous on that one at all. But the next one, the one that to me wasn't -- didn't really matter, all it was for was money or whatever, Retief had a ten-foot straight uphill 2-putt to win. That was the one that got me feeling a little bit nervous because in that situation, all that mattered was really how I felt about myself and how the way -- the crowd thought about me, the other golfers. Nothing was riding on it except for that and so I used that, actually, quite a bit to learn about that this.

Q. Do you feel like you get your due credit, pats on the back and the applause, recognition, all that stuff? You've been hanging around up there, top of the Money List now, for a few years, won your share, moved up the World Rankings, sort of like DiMarco, guys who fans just sort of seemingly don't put in that other pantheon?

STEWART CINK: We have to win more, me and guys like Chris DiMarco and a few others. I've won four tournaments. I need to win more to deserve that kind of accolades or whatever. I know what you're talking about, the Big Four talk.

I need to win more tournaments and I need to be in contention more often and that's what I'm really trying to work towards is just being there more. I don't think you can go to the practice tee and practice winning. But you can sure go to the practice tee and figure out a way to put yourself in the situation more often and that's what I do. So I think until I win more and have some more success, then I won't be grouped into those guys and I won't be a guy that everyone wants to come and show up just for my round, no, it won't be like that. But if I can find a way to win a few more tournaments and find a way to become a regular on the top of the leaderboard, instead of just near the top, then maybe.

TODD BUDNICK: Let's go through your birdies, No. 13.

STEWART CINK: I told my caddie walking up there that I had not made a bomb in a while, it was about a 50-footer and made it. I hit 2-iron in.

14, I hit a 3-iron about five feet.

16, L-wedge, six feet.

17, pitching wedge, six feet.

18, I was in the right rough but I had a good lie, really good lie. Hit a 6-iron about 15 feet.

4, I hit a 4-iron about 25 feet.

Missed the green from the middle of the fairway on 5. The ball got up in the wind a little bit came up short and spun down the hill. Failed to get up-and-down there and missed about a 6-footer.

6, I hit a wedge about ten feet.

9, hit an 8-iron about a foot.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Stewart.

End of FastScripts.

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