HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC – Stewart Cink has seen a lot, but at 47 he does not always remember it, something he easily jokes about on Twitter.
At RBC Heritage in Harbor Town, he shot the fur off the track (a favorite Cink-ism) with two 63s and then held on for the weekend. His final round of 70, on a day when no one came closer than three strokes, got him down to 19 under par and scored him four runners-up Emiliano Grillo (68) and Harold Varner III (66).
What made this, his eighth victory, stand out?
“The fact that it happened at my age,” he said.
But also, he added, the friends and family who were there to celebrate with him.
Cink, who is the second two-time winner on TOUR this season after Bryson DeChambeau and moves from 26th to third in the FedExCup standings, celebrated the victory with wife Lisa and their sons, Connor and Reagan (also Cink’s caddy) , plus Connor’s fiancée and several friends.
“Everything between the shots,” Reagan said when asked what he would remember about the win – his second with his father this season. ‘By walking down the clearing, strolling. We talk and we plan the shots, and we have a good system, but it’s just like the time we spend walking on the highway, it’s great. That’s the best. It really is. ‘
What did Stewart Cink get? He talks about the importance of his team and attributes his return season in part to his new coach Cornel Driessen. With Driessen’s help, the veteran – Cink won the 1997 Travelers’ Championship when Collin Morikawa was born – did indeed distance himself, despite being eligible on the doorstep of the PGA TOUR champions.
Cink was 144th in the FedExCup and 300th in the world after missing the Wyndham Championship track to finish last season. He made some changes to equipment, became more efficient and with Driessen gaining so much power and mobility, he started playing a new style.
“I could really turn my game into a little more of a power play,” he said.
But the change in Cink’s squad was nowhere clearer than with the man carrying his suitcase when he won the fall at the Fortinet Open in Napa last season – his first victory in more than 11 years.
“He and I have always been just on the same wavelength,” Cink said of his son. ‘We are similar from the same DNA, and I literally mean we’re the same person. We think of things – we think of jokes, we notice the same funny things, we just pick up the same kind of small details about things in our immediate environment. ”
In spite of all that their arrangements were supposed to be temporary; Reagan, 23, is a newly graduated Georgia Tech graduate (industrial engineering) who worked in the aviation division for Delta Airlines. He is a scratch-handicap and has his own life to lead.
“Traveling and living in a circus here like I did all my adult life is made tolerable by being a player,” Cink said at the Sanderson Farms Championship last fall when he and Reagan agreed that it a top would take five times for them to continue (Cink completed T12). “When you play, you’re kind of the highest level of the wedding cake out here.”
Cink returned to his main closet, Kip Henley, and opened 67-63 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. “I was like, no matter who now for my caddies, I’m just killing it!” Cink said laughing Sunday. Then he shot 70-81 over the weekend.
He reunites with Reagan during the Bermuda Championship, but not for obvious reasons. Cink said Bermuda was going to be difficult to catch up with, and gave Henley leave this week – and then finished T4 with his son back on the bag. Stewart and Reagan now seemed like too good a team to go apart.
“Our flight from Bermuda was on Monday afternoon around 3pm because there were no flights at that time due to COVID, so we sat in the hotel room for a long time,” said Cink, the second oldest heritage winner. (Hale Irwin, 48). “Lisa was there, Reagan was there and that Monday morning while we were waiting for our flight, we had a great team.”
Cink told Reagan he wants him on the bag at the Masters. Then he reconsidered.
I said, ‘You know what, you think about it, how do you just want to caddy for this season? ‘, Cink said. “He said, ‘I’m so glad you asked. ”
Reagan was supposed to start work in two days, but called his team. However, Stewart went straight to the top and made a call to Delta CEO Ed Bastian – as luck would have it.
“I did not ask Ed to do anything,” Cink said. “I just said, ‘Ed, if you were me, what do you think you would do?’ “And he has grown daughters and I have sons, and he said, ‘Stewart, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.’ I don ‘t think Ed would mind me quoting him. He said: ‘We love Reagan. We think Reagan is going to work at Delta for 40 years.
“We do not think it will hurt to wait another year, so leave him caddy.” ‘
Reagan, who is engaged to get married on July 31, will pay for his father through the FedExCup Playoffs. “And then I’ll be at the caddy market again or maybe retire,” Stewart said laughing.
Not that anyone would allow him. The best comeback story of this season is only getting better.