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Stewart Cink has been around the professional golf block.

A 29-year pro, Cink has witnessed the PGA Tour transform from a medium-sized league to a professional sports behemoth — and then watched again as that behemoth grew big enough to become the target of a rival league funded by a foreign autocracy. Those developments have brought with them no shortage of change, and that change has affected Cink’s bottom line more than once.

Still, never has a pro golf change been quite as sudden as the developments of the last 12 months, a time when the PGA Tour both crafted and ratified a new system of competition that promised to stratify the game in a way it never had been before.

By now you know about the signature events series, a circuit of eight big-money PGA Tour events, many of which feature limited fields and no cuts. The series was made primarily to help the PGA Tour stymie the threat of LIV defections by allowing its best players to compete against one another more often for larger paychecks. The downside of that shift, however, was what it did to the Tour’s so-called “working class.” Those players, who rank outside of the top 50 in the FedEx Cup rankings, are not guaranteed entrance into the signature events series, a development that leaves them in a considerably weaker financial position than their top-50 counterparts.

In theory, the signature events changes were made to improve the competitive integrity of the Tour — shoring up the product to be more reliably interesting and star-driven. But that’s precisely why the changes have rankled Stewart Cink, who voiced some of his concerns about them during a post-round presser at the Sony Open on Friday.

“If I was in the top 50 I would really like it, but I’m not, so I don’t like it,” Cink said. “Unfortunately I do think it’s probably the right thing to do for golf fans. If all the players play in those and we get great fields playing for a lot of money then it’s great. It’s just I don’t think it serves everybody, and PGA Tour kind of has been about doing the best for everybody, for all the pros and members.”

Cink says he understands the market forces that led to Tour being the way it now is, and he was careful not to point his criticism in the direction of Tour leadership for making the best of a very difficult situation. But he echoed a complaint we’ve heard from a series of pros outside the top 50 over the last nine months: the Tour changes create a closed system, making it difficult for those who fall outside the top-50 from ever making it in.

“To me, it’s a little bit out of balance. I understand where it all came from. We had to do something because we had a competing venture out there trying to swallow our players up,” Cink said. “We had to give our players a reason to stay, so I get it. It’s not easy, but where I’m sitting I don’t really love it.”

Fortunately, the Tour enacted some specific changes to address those concerns, blocking off 10 slots in each of the signature events for players who compete well over a certain stretch in the Tour season. But Cink says the problem isn’t that there are no opportunities — just that there are too few of them.

“To honor [good] finishes with a chance to move up into these Signature Events, I think it’s good,” He said. ” One thing that personally I am not for is I played in the first year of the elevated tournaments — they were mostly full-field tournaments with cuts and all the top players played — I thought they were just absolutely brilliant. It’s hard to convince me and a lot of the players that aren’t in those fields why being a small field matters. That’s where I stand on it.”

In Cink’s eyes, field size is the biggest issue presented by the new way of life. Not just from a little-guy standpoint, but from an entertainment standpoint, too.

“I’m just not convinced why an 80-man field is more elite than a 156-man field,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

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The post ‘I might have set a record today’: Pro bookends Open round in inglorious fashion appeared first on Golf.

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Some days, ya got it. Other days, ya don’t.

On Thursday, Stewart Cink didn’t have it.

“It really hurts to have a day like today, because I love playing here,” Cink said following his six-over 78 in the opening round of the 150th Open Championship on the storied Old Course.

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While you were sleeping Friday at The Open: LIV golfers making a move

By: Sean Zak

That can happen to even the best players in the world here on this bumpy, wind-battered links, and not only because their swings aren’t cooperating. To post a number on the Old Course, you also need to have your wits about you. Avoiding pot bunkers and leaving approach shots in the right spots on and around the greens requires golfers to think their way around the course like a captain tacking a vessel through stormy waters. One poor choice can Cink…er, sink you.

Take the par-3 8th, which on the card in the first round played about 190 yards. With the wind and the crispiness of the ground, Cink estimated he needed to play only a 170-yard shot to the back-left pin. Nope, too much. His ball trundled off the back, leading to a bogey. Later, Cink estimated that to be pin high he needed only to carry his ball about 155 yards.

“I felt like it was just one bad decision after another out there,” said Cink, who this week is playing in his 23rd Open Championship. “I kept being wrong. I’m not really accustomed to that.”

He added, “You get off the rails, and you just feel like you stay off the rails.”

The derailing began early, at the par-4 1st. After splitting the sprawling fairway, Cink had only 83 yards left to the hole. But when he hit his approach only 72 yards, it disappeared into the burn that fronts the green. A drop, chip and putt later, Cink had an opening bogey.

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Over the ensuing 16 holes, he made five more bogeys against a lone birdie, which brings us to his tee shot at the iconic 18th hole, which shares a fairway with the 1st. There’s only one place you can’t afford to miss with your tee shot on 18, and that’s right, where a busy pedestrian thoroughfare called The Links lines the entirety of the hole.

Cink missed right. Like, way right. A lucky fan on The Links had an unexpected souvenir.  

Cink is a jovial soul and good sport, so despite the tough start and finish to his round, he still found a positive in his struggles.

“I might have set a record today,” he said. “I might be the first person ever to hit it in the burn on 1 and hit it O.B. on 18 in the same round. I don’t know, but it was just not a day for me in any way. I couldn’t judge lies right. I read putts wrong, and I also executed some shots pretty poorly. Overall, it adds up to about 78.”

Here’s some better news: On Friday, Cink parred the 1st and birdied 18. With three other birdies against as many bogeys, it added up to a much-improved score, a one-under 71.

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Stewart Cink didn’t realize it at the time, but 21 years ago at Southern Hills a mere 18 inches stood between him and what coulda-shoulda been a spot in a U.S. Open playoff.

Cink, believing the putt was inconsequential given his playing partner Retief Goosen needed only to two-putt from 12 feet for the title, rushed his stroke and missed the tap-in. It didn’t seem like a big deal until Goosen himself three-putted, setting up a playoff between him and Mark Brooks. So, yeah, the miss was, in fact, a huge deal.

This week, Cink is back at Southern Hills — this time for the 104th PGA Championship — and though much more than 18 inches stand between him and a shot at the title, he has once again put himself in position to contend on Sunday. After a third-round 71, Cink is at two under for the tournament, seven back of 54-hole leader Mito Pereira.

Things, of course, are much different for Cink this time around.

For one, the golf course, care of a recent Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner restoration, is longer and airier than it was at that U.S. Open, with more slopes and runoffs around the greens. “It’s completely different,” Cink said Saturday evening. “I have one memory [from 2001] — that’s missing a short putt on the last hole that cost me from getting into a playoff. It took me a while to get over, and it’s 20 years down the road almost. It’s a distant memory now.”

Cink himself is different, too. Different hairline, different clubs, different game. He can still knock it out there; he’s averaging 301 yards in driving distance this season on the PGA Tour. He can still win; he picked up two PGA Tour titles in the 2020-21 season. But he relies more on smarts and guile than he did two decades ago. He has a different caddie, too — his son, Reagan. “He’s part me,” Cink said of their bond. “Literally he thinks about golf the same way I think about it.”

At least one other thing is different, too: the notion that a player Cink’s age can win a major championship.

Phil Mickelson, of course, proved it a year ago at this very tournament, when, one month shy of his 51st birthday, he held off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island to become the oldest major winner in history. Don’t think his peers weren’t paying attention.

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“It blows the ceiling off what we thought was impossible before,” Cink said Saturday. “Phil is his own guy for sure and he’s one of the best the game has ever seen but the fact that at his age he could not only just compete but finish it off and win, coupled with the fact I know I’ve got recent wins on the PGA Tour, it really gives me a load of belief that I can go out there and compete in a tournament like this, and maybe tomorrow, you know, if I have a couple of those things that didn’t go my way today, maybe they go my way — four or five under par, you just never know. I’ve got that going for me and surely I was inspired by seeing what Phil did and that he hung in there and that he was himself and just made it happen.”

If you didn’t see Cink coming this week, you’re forgiven. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t been trending up. In March, he tied for 7th at the Valspar. He missed the cut at the Masters and then finished 68th at Harbour Town but bounced back with a T9 at the Wells Fargo, his most recent start before the PGA. This week, he has posted a cool 69-68-71 thanks in part to his superior driving; he’s third overall in SG: Off the Tee, picking up nearly two full stokes on the field in the chilly third round. “I’m wearing both the pullovers that I brought with me,” he said of his Saturday outfit. “I have nothing left in my suitcase. I saw a couple short sleeves out there, but I need to conserve heat at my age.”

Cink’s Sunday plan will be no different from his Thursday-Friday-Saturday approach. “Stay in the present and keep on what we like to call ‘bludgeoning,’ and that means just working everything down to a common denominator and executing that shot and going to find the ball,” he said. “It’s really simple, [but] it’s really hard to do when your emotions are just like going like the Indy 500 out there.

“That’s going to be the key for me tomorrow. Keep doing what I’ve been doing. I’ve been striking the ball great and just clawing and fighting, and I’m going to keep doing that. If it turns into a 64 or 65 tomorrow, who knows.”

Who knows, indeed — perhaps we’ll get another win for the ages.

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Talk about your sweet spots. Phil Mickelson and Stewart Cink were playing together in Charlotte, N.C., in May, in the Sunday round. Two golfers, almost 100 years between them, and still hitting it square on the face, with speed. Sweetness indeed.

Two golfers marching down Quail Hollow’s wide fairways, neither with any chance to win, chatting about this, chatting about that. As public personalities, neither man is like the other. (Phil’s all look-at-me. Stew blends.) But as sentient beings, these two Open Championship winners are cut from the same cloth. They ask, they seek.

Cink, a few weeks earlier, had won at Hilton Head. Mickelson, after a first-round 64 at Quail Hollow, had shot rounds of 75 and 76. They both had bloodline caddies. Carrying Cink’s bag was his younger son, Reagan. (A family name, not a political statement.) Mickelson’s caddie was his kid brother, Tim. (Saint Philip, Saint Timothy; their mother doesn’t miss Mass.) Mickelson and Cink will both tell you that the caddie-player dynamic is different when your caddie is a member of the fam.

So, two old-hand Tour players, an early-Sunday tee time, nothing at stake but a check. A breeding ground for intimacy, PGA Tour–style.

“How are you handling getting older?” Mickelson asked Cink, as Cink recalled it.

“The biggest thing for me is focus,” Cink said.

“Me too,” Mickelson said.

“The easy thing would be to do nothing about it,” Cink said.

Mickelson nodded. He’s not the do-nothing-about-it type, and neither is Cink. So, Phil asked, what do you do?

“I stay hydrated and make sure I get enough sleep,” Cink said, trying to get 50 things down to two. Next shots were coming up, as they always are on your way to the house. Phil signed for another 76.

“And then he goes and wins the PGA!” Cink told me. We’ve had a series of interviews and text exchanges, going back to mid-March. His tongue is often in cheek.

As for Mickelson, since Kiawah he has said more than once how much he got out of that round with Cink. A few days after his win at Kiawah, Phil said, “Stewart is striking it so good, hitting the ball long and straight, and he’s having a lot of fun out there, with Reagan at his side.”

I asked Cink about family members as caddies.

“There’s an intimacy inside the ropes that you wouldn’t have otherwise,” Stewart said. “You can be more vulnerable. You can say, ‘I’m scared of this shot.’”

It’s not every golfer who will use those words, but Cink is not every golfer. He saw a therapist for years. Not a “sports psychologist.” A therapist. This is his thing: You want to fix a problem? Take it on. Talk therapy is his starting point.

It’s hard to imagine Hogan or Arnold or Tiger rolling like that. But this space is reserved for Stewart Cink, 48-year-old new-age golfer.

In Stewart Cink’s Wikipedia entry, under Personal Life, there are two sentences that don’t tell all but do tell much: “Cink and his wife, Lisa, have two sons, Connor and Reagan. Cink is a Christian.” Cink’s faith runs from his cleated feet straight through his shaved and hatted head. With that in mind, and nodding to his sense of fun, I asked Stewart to imagine Jesus Christ as a caddie.

Earlier, we had been talking about Jesus as a golfer. Cink imagined Jesus at the top of the World Amateur list and the World Golf Ranking list, asking tournament directors to donate his forfeited prize money to charity. When I asked Cink about Jesus’ practice habits, he said, “He’d make Fred Couples look like Bryson DeChambeau. He’d have other things to do.”

Like caddying for those in need. For this creative exercise with Cink, I took the liberty of making Jesus a caddie in the Masters, standing in the middle of the 15th fairway, working for a young amateur looking to play the last four in even par to make the cut.

Young am to Jesus: What do you think?

Second shot, 230 to carry the pond, 250 hole. Jesus, sandals on his feet, is wearing both his go-to robe and the club’s iconic white overalls.

Cink: “Jesus would say to the kid, ‘What do you think?’”

Young am: I’m afraid of topping it into the water and missing the cut.

“Jesus would say, ‘Why are you afraid of that?’”

Because there’s an expectation that I should be able to pull off this shot.

“And Jesus would say, ‘It really doesn’t matter.’

“And it doesn’t. Whether you top it into the lake or not, it really doesn’t matter. You’re gonna try your best on the shot. That’s all you can do. Consider the shot as best you can. Make the best swing you can. What happens, happens. That’s what I’ve learned.”

The lake. So old-school.

Stewart Cink has a whole thing, a philosophy, about expectations. He got it from his wife, Lisa. In April 2016, Lisa was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. It’s in remission. (Knock on wood, PTL and thank ye kindly, MD Anderson.) But with Stage IV, it’s one day, and one test, at a time. Lisa is doing great. But expectations change from the day you get that first call.

We jump ahead to last September. Stewart and Lisa are in a hotel room in Napa, Calif. Reagan, caddying for his father in a Tour event for the first time, was out getting Sunday breakfast. Cink, through 54 holes, was two shots back. He hadn’t won a Tour event since the 2009 British Open, in a playoff with Tom Watson.

“I’m scared,” Stewart said.

Yep, that word again. Not Stage IV cancer scary. A different kind.

“There’s not one person out there who expects you to win,” Lisa said. “You’re out there with Reagan. Have fun, play like you have nothing to lose.”

It’s a family affair. (Here comes Sly, bass shaking the floor: It’s a family affair.) Pep talk by Lisa! Bag-toting by Reagan! Ten one-putt greens by Stew! A win. Eight months later, another one, Connor on hand. Family snaps backlit by the famous red-and-white Hilton Head lighthouse. Both sons are engineers, both are getting married this summer.

Connor is getting short shrift here. He’s at the core of the original Stewart Cink origin story.

Stewart and Lisa were college sweethearts when she called with the news. She was pregnant. They got married in June after their sophomore year. Connor was born three months later. “I had to grow up,” Cink said. He found his way to the library (and graduated from Georgia Tech in 1995 and in four years). He found his way to the driving range (and turned pro right after graduation, winning three times on the Nike tour in 1996). Along the way, he found his way to his God.

A tip of the hat to Connor, for the Stewart-Connor, father-son win at the Father-Son event in Orlando in 2013.

A tip of the hat to Lisa, for her hubby’s win at Napa last year.

A tip of the hat to Reagan, for his dad’s win at Hilton Head.

And then there’s Phil, Phil on Stew: “He’s inspiring.”

Word.

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Despite nearing Champions Tour eligibility, Stewart Cink is playing some of the best golf of his career. Here are seven tips for his success.

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For this yipping reporter, the most memorable Tour shot of the year, witnessed in person, was played by Stewart Cink. It came not in his terrific win last week, at Hilton Head, but in the third round of the Honda Classic in March.

Stew was playing well and playing late, with Camilo Villegas. He was contending. On 18, he hit a par putt that looked like 18 inches to me, though ShotLink has it as a three-footer. Cink, 47 years old, stood behind the ball, with that tall man’s erect carriage of his, and stared down the line. He seemed to be talking to himself. His shoulders went up, his shoulders went down and he exhaled elaborately. He was nervous and not afraid to show it. His putt for par barely touched the hole. He tapped in for bogey.

I had hoped to talk to Stewart for a story I was writing about Camilo, about what it was like for Camilo to return to tournament golf after the heartbreak of he and his wife losing their 22-month-old daughter to cancer. Stewart is warm and engaging and you could see that he and Camilo had a nice rapport. But I didn’t know what kind of mood Stewart would be in after that shove-job par putt on the last.

It was as if it never happened. On instinct alone, he knew exactly what story I was trying to write, and how it way transcended, in the grand scheme of things, his efforts to win the 2021 Honda Classic.

Instruction

Inside Stewart (and Reagan) Cink's secret winning formula

By: Zephyr Melton

I’ll get to that part in a minute, but let me do this first. After his Hilton Head win, I asked Stewart a couple of questions about short putting. If you saw him through the week, you can see he sometimes has a false start on his backswing on his short putts. I asked him about what kinds of things he says to himself when he’s lining up his shorties.

“If I told you the truth,” he said, without ever really finishing that thought. “It doesn’t get any easier. I work so hard on the mental side of the game. As you get closer to the hole your expectation level changes. It’s not a linear change. Short putting I try to be rock-solid on my routine and trust the process. I know some of those putts are going to lip out, and that sometimes you’re going to look silly, you’re going to feel bad. And you have to expect and plan for that, and move on.

“If you spend your whole career or your whole tournament bracing for something like that, hoping it doesn’t happen and trying to hide it, then you’re going to be devastated when something like that happens at the wrong time. I’ve missed my share.”

Without prompting, he brought up the 2001 U.S. Open at Southern Hills.

“I missed a really short putt on the last hole that was mostly embarrassing to me at the time. Of course, later on it ended up costing me a spot in the playoff. I didn’t know it at the time. No one likes that feeling.

“I’ve spent a lot of time and money on trying to be solid in my beliefs about what is really happening on the course and where my trust is, where my peace and joy come from. If I depended on all these two- and three- and four-footers going in to feel good about myself, then I’d be in the wrong business.”

Instruction

This is how 47-year-old Stewart Cink gained 20 yards with his driver

By: Luke Kerr-Dineen

There’s a lot to unpack in there. A whole life philosophy, really.

“You know, you can’t control the results. You can’t control bounces or the wind or a ball that rolls on the green and rims out of the hole.

“You probably see me mouthing something to Reagan [Cink’s caddie and son at Hilton Head], or you might audibly pick it up on the coverage: I like to remind myself is that I want to be on the mountaintop of trust before every putt. Those aren’t just words to me. I’m actually trying to construct my pre-shot routine so that that’s what I’m focused on consciously. I hate the word ‘routine’ because that’s not the right word for what we do. It’s an operation that requires focus and cadence, and I’m trying to hit my little spots along that routine. By the time I finish that routine, the ball is already rolling.

“You probably have heard me or see me mouth the words, ‘Mountaintop of trust.’ Or, ‘Mountaintop of peace.’ You know, little phrases like that. I’m really just saying it so I can hear myself and remind myself.

“It’s a path to success. Obviously, I want to make the putts. I don’t want to miss putts. But I believe that the way to keep myself the calmest and the way to keep my stroke doing what it’s supposed to do is through the process and staying calm and focusing on something I can control, as opposed to something you can’t control. If you depend on something you can’t control, you’re just going to end up frustrated, and I don’t want to be frustrated.”

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Wow. I think there are things in that that any of us can take to the course, provided you have this first: sound fundamentals.

It’s clear, with Stewart, that his family and his faith are integral parts of his life. He doesn’t define himself by his profession. I think that’s why he was able to speak so movingly and honestly about Camilo’s hurt so shortly after missing that short putt at Honda.

“One of my favorite guys to play with,” Cink said on that Saturday afternoon at Honda. Reagan was caddying for his father that week. Villegas had his brother, Manuel, as his caddie. Watching Camilo, Stewart said, he could see the golf course was “his sanctuary.” “As it is for many of us,” he added.

That doesn’t mean it’s a fantasyland where only good things happen. What Cink tries to do is control what he can control.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

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Welcome to Play Smart, a game-improvement column that drops every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from Director of Game Improvement content Luke Kerr-Dineen to help you play smarter, better golf.

Twenty-one years, almost to the day, after his first victory at Harbour Town, Stewart Cink captured his third PGA Tour title at the course last weekend. The tournament was called the MCI Classic back then, Tiger Woods boasted just two majors to his name, and Michael Clark II’s victory at the John Deere Classic was enough to earn him Rookie of the Year honors.

Yet Cink has remained ever-present on the PGA Tour, and while his career will forever be defined by thwarting 59 year-old Tom Watson’s would-be sixth Open Championship title, Cink’s win at this year’s RBC Heritage as a 47 year old speaks volumes in his own right — and can provide a valuable lesson for golfers long for more longevity in their own game.

Cink’s late-career distance boost

When players get older, the story with their driver is usually the same: They become gradually less flexible, which shortens their swing, which means they don’t hit their driver as far. It all serves to make the game a little more difficult, which nobody wants.

Cink has defied logic, and somehow done the opposite: 113th last season with a 295 average, this year he’s averaging 306 yards and ranks 26th in driving distance.

“As long as you’re playing golf you’re trying to find distance. I don’t care if you’re playing on the PGA Tour or if you’re a 25 handicapper, everybody wants to hit it a little bit farther,” Cink said at the start of the season. “You can almost look at any stat and it just tells you the root factor of that stat is driving distance. The farther you hit it, the easier golf is, on almost every step. And so if you can add five yards, you’re going to just improve your strokes gained and so why wouldn’t you?”

Cink was right, and now he’s a PGA Tour winner once again. Here’s how he did it.

1. Balance, flexibility, stability, core strength

There’s no getting around it: If you want a late-career distance boost, you’ll need to commit to a fitness routine. For Cink, that meant targeting the key areas of balance, flexibility and core strength that play an important role in the golf swing.

“It’s weight training, it’s body weight, it’s balance, it’s core,” he said. “In golf when you try to get stronger and fitter, you’re really trying to build a support base in your body for what you’re trying to do in your swing…specifically attacking muscle groups and making sure that there’s flexibility here and there’s strength here, sometimes both, but where you need it.”

2. Know your golf swing

Cink said another distance-boosting key for him was simply gaining a greater understanding of his unique golf swing. Accepting what he does well, what he doesn’t, and not overhauling. Instead, the goal is to find little tweaks to improve.

“I’ve got a really good handle on what my golf swing does. It’s a little bit different than a lot of golf swings, and I’m certainly from a different era than almost everybody playing the PGA Tour right now, but I understand what I do,” Cink says.

3. Make your equipment efficient

Finally — and perhaps most importantly — Cink said he took a good hard look at his equipment. Getting fit at a good clubfitter, like our friends over at True Spec, really is something we should all be doing because it’s such low-hanging fruit.

For Cink, it helped him lower his spin-rate off the tee which turned into a huge distance boost.

“I was able to change some of my equipment and get my launch and spin rates a lot more efficient,” he said. “It helped me control my mis-hits, it helped me play in the wind a little bit better. It helped me be more predictable, and it helped me and Reagan sort of implement that system that we use to where we have very few surprises on the golf course.”

Need help adding yards? Schedule a driver fitting with the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

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Welcome to Spotted on Tour, where we’ll highlight buzzy apparel, gear, gadgets and more that caught our eye over the weekend. Better yet, we’ll help you get your hands on your own.

Stewart Cink — yes, that Stewart Cink — nabbed his eighth PGA Tour win this weekend at the RBC Heritage; a four-stroke victory that was perhaps most notable for how casual it appeared. Cink remained in contention from wire to wire, and clung to a hefty lead on Sunday without showing any signs of cracking. Perhaps that’s the value of two-and-a-half decades of final-round experience.

Cink has been around professional golf for a long time. He is a PGA Tour lifer, celebrating his 26th year in pro golf in 2021. For context: Collin Morikawa, who finished seventh at Harbour Town, was not born when Cink made his professional debut in 1995.

And yet, despite the multitude of younger, hungrier players around the pro game, it seems the Huntsville, Ala. native is having something of a career renaissance in 2021. Thus far, Cink’s age 47 season has featured two victories, three top 10s and seven top 25 finishes in only 15 starts.

In his own words, Cink was clinical at the RBC Heritage (with son Reagan on the bag), sleeping on the 36 and 54-hole leads en route to the win.

“It was just a really good, solid week all the way through,” he said. “It was pretty spectacular the first two days, just like could do no wrong, and then the week was just — it was just a bunch of solid hitting, nothing exciting but enough.”

With his game doing the majority of the talking throughout the weekend, Cink’s appearance crept into the Sunday conversation at Harbour Town.

Sure, the man enjoys skinny pants and one of the most recognizable tan lines in the world, but decidedly less of the conversation around his attire surrounded his shoes.

Cink might have the PGA Tour’s most lovable dad energy at the moment, but his shoes are a far cry from typical paternal attire. Cink’s FootJoy ProSL Carbon spikes are built with some of the company’s most advanced technology. FootJoy touts the ProSL as being the “perfect balance of stability and comfort,” utilizing a power harness for lateral and medial support and “Fine Tuned Foam” to mold each shoe to its wearer’s foot.

FootJoy says the ProSL’s “Infinity Outsole” makes the shoe the most stable spikeless model they’ve ever built, containing 30 percent more points of traction than previous models. As for performance, the ProSLs come with a two-year waterproof warranty and include the company’s popular “OrthoLite” fit bed for underfoot cushioning.

To learn more, check out the shoes below.

FootJoy Pro|SL Carbon

FootJoy’s Pro|SL shoes provide all the comfort of spikeless shoes with all the stability premium players need. DualDensity midsole and performance leather promise high-level performance, no matter the conditions, while the Infinity Outsole provides 30 percent more points of contact than previous models.

Buy Now from www.footjoy.com

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Is Lydia Ko’s win a minor deal, huge deal, or medium deal? Billy Horschel says it’s time to ban arm-lock putting and Bryson has posted a new workout video. The Drop Zone recaps a wild week.

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The post Inside Stewart (and Reagan) Cink’s secret winning formula appeared first on Golf.

The post Inside Stewart (and Reagan) Cink’s secret winning formula appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Teachable Moments, GOLF’s weekly instruction column that will help you improve your game through the excellence and expertise of the Tour stars of the week. Class is now in session.

Stewart Cink’s winning formula

With his son Reagan on the bag, Stewart Cink won his second tournament of the season as he lapped the field at the RBC Heritage last week. Winning at the age of 47 on Tour is a rare thing. Winning twice is almost unheard of. The recipe for success comes down to a secret decision-making formula.

Cink explained that he and Reagan do their homework and come up with a game plan the day before that takes into account wind direction and hole locations. They want to “create a game plan where the hole captures the golf ball.” The pair grade the trouble surrounding the hole locations and assign a green, yellow or red light to the shot that dictates how they will attack the hole.

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“It takes the decision making out of our hands,” Cink said. “It makes the day efficient. It’s just something nice to be able to rely on where the decision is already made by the system, and I don’t have to be under the pressure to try to make the decision when I’m feeling a lot of duress.”

With the decisions about how to attack the course made before the round even begins, all that’s left is for Cink to show up and execute.

“I’ve seen tournaments lost, [and] I’ve lost tournaments myself because I made a poor decision in a heightened moment,” he said. “With this system that we have going, we don’t have to make a lot of adjustments and the system takes care of itself. All we have to do, we’re left with executing and then reading putts, because we’re not going to put the ball in very many places where we shouldn’t be.”

Whatever the system is, it sure seems to be working.

A winning mindset for Lydia Ko

After a drought of nearly three years, Lydia Ko is back in the winner’s circle. Her win at the Lotte Championship was her 16th on the LPGA Tour and her first since teaming up with swing coach Sean Foley. According to Ko, Foley has helped her rediscover a positive mindset while on the course.

“I think when I’m having fun and being happy that’s when I play the best golf,” Ko said. “[Foley] puts all the rubbish thoughts that come in and just swoops it to the side for me.”

That positive mindset has been a gamechanger for Ko. Prior to working with Foley, she was in a rut in her career, but over the last 10 months she has nine top 10s in 16 starts, including her latest victory.

“I think in general when people are having fun, you’re able to perform at your best,” she said. “It’s kind of having that balance between having fun and being focused.”

Will Zalatoris’ “magic” move

Will Zalatoris has become one of the hottest names in the golf over the past two weeks as the world has been introduced to the budding star. One thing that sticks out in his game is his elite ball striking.

Although Zalatoris is only 24 years old, he’s already being mentioned among the best ball strikers on Tour. And his success comes from a unique move in his swing.

GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood broke down the move in a video on Twitter last week as he explained how Zalatoris gets his arms and hands into the proper position in the downswing after bringing them so high in the backswing.

The secret, Yarwood explains, is Zalatoris increases his forward bend during transition. This move creates room for his arms and hands to drop into that space and get into perfect position as he comes into impact.

“There’s an example of great athletes at work making compensations in their swing to make it work,” Yarwood said. “And boy does it work. What a breath of fresh air this guy is.”

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