Stewart Cink British Open Q&A: The 2009 champ recalls Tom Watson's big mistake and more

AYRSHIRE, Scotland — Fifteen years ago, Stewart Cink, one of the most affable, kind and sincere humans, let alone golfers, became one of sport's biggest villains for defeating sentimental favorite Tom Watson in a playoff at Turnberry to win the British Open and be crowned Champion Golfer of the Year. Virtually everyone but Cink's immediate family was rooting for the 59-year-old eight-time major champion to have one more moment of glory. Cink was a James Bond villain except he succeeded in making the kill.

Fifteen years later, he still hears about it all the time. During an interview in Detroit at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, he told a local interviewer, "More often than not, people are saying why did you have to beat Tom Watson, my favorite golfer. To me it feels like it was yesterday, I know it was a lot longer than yesterday, and it’s a pretty fresh memory in people’s mind too."

Cink, 51, is still battling to play with the big boys while dipping in from time to time to play the senior circuit. He took a stroll down memory lane last month from seat 3B of his Delta Airlines flight home to Atlanta from Buffalo after competing in the RBC Canadian Open and trying to qualify for the U.S. Open in Final Qualifying.

GWK: What what do you remember most about the week you won?

STEWART CINK: I remember taking a vacation to Ireland. It was the first time my kids were old enough to go and play links golf courses and enjoy it. They were 15 and 12 at the time. We went to Ireland five days before and just played golf. I got to show them what links golf is all about. We just had a blast playing every day. My wife didn't play golf at the time. So we stayed on the West Coast and played Doonbeg, Lahinch and Ballybunion, playing 36 holes a day.

The biggest thing I remember about Turnberry that week is we were having such a great time in Ireland that we extended our trip there by a day and I didn't even arrive at Turnberry until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, which is kind of late for a major. I was just so content and my attitude was this whole trip has already been a success. I don't care what happens the rest of the time. Expectations were in the right place. The whole week I felt like I'd already won because I had a great week that last week. I've just always loved playing links golf even though I never had a great record until Turnberry but I just really enjoyed it. 

GWK: What was working that week for you?

SC: I hit it really well. I think because of the contentment that I was feeling I was in like a really good place for like self-forgiveness and acceptance if I didn't hit good shots or if I missed putts. I wasn't very hard on myself. Scoring was high, the course was tough. People ask me what was a key shot you hit? Whenever I think of the tournaments I’ve won, I always think of the bad shots I hit as the key shots because how you respond as opposed to heroic great shots. Everybody hits heroic great shots but not everybody responds to their poor shots well. I remember on Saturday, I was up near the lead and hit it on the green in two on a par five on a downwind par five playing real easy. Had a pretty close eagle putt, maybe 15-20 feet and took three putts. Missed a short putt, no more than three feet.

I think under normal circumstances, that would have been devastating and it would have been hard to forgive myself. But that week I just did such a great job of telling myself, "that happens," and it just didn't even faze me at all. It wasn't even like a hiccup and that's the shot I remember being like a key shot at a key time. I think it was around the turn on Saturday and I did not break my stride. I point back to how I enjoyed myself so much with my the kids; my priorities were in a good place. It’s not all about performance sometimes.

GWK: Was there a moment in the final round when you thought this could be my day?

SC: I think I shot 1 under. I was the third group from the end. It was a good day when the average score was about 3 over, but it wasn't like historically out of your mind kind of day. On the back nine, Watson being involved served me too because it kept me distracted in between shots. I was like, 'I wonder what Watson is doing.' It was such a cool story. So that probably helped me a little bit kind of keeping the focus off of my own stuff.

GWK: People forget how Lee Westwood blew it too. At minimum, he should’ve been in the playoff.

SC: Well, yeah, but he missed the fairway into the bunker on 18 which is to me the crucial error he made. He had an acre to the right off the tee. The three putt, yeah, he did, but to say I thought I had to make that, it was a 50-footer downwind. I’d say he had at least a 30 percent chance of three putting that.

GWK: Where did you watch the end of regulation play out?

SC: I was in the locker room. Lisa and me and the kids and this random couple that we know. Lisa knew the girl from college. She got married to a Brit, and we just happened to give them tickets. They came up there with us and got swept into the whole thing with us in the locker room. We were all there just staring at this television that was probably like that wide (holding hands close together). 

Westwood blew it off the tee hitting in the bunker. It was the easiest tee shot of the day. He had to just blink to put it there. And Watson blew it on the second shot because the way that hole was playing, the wind blew exactly the same direction every day. The tee shot was down off the right and the second shot was straight down. My caddy and me figured the way the course was playing the front of the green was pretty open – it was flat – and it was like typical links. We picked out this section in the fairway that was like five yards to 15 yards short of the green and that was where I tried to land it every day. It's going to roll into the middle of the green, and from there, you're going to have a putt to any hole location. That's what I did on Sunday. I was 195 out and hit 9-iron. People are always like, ‘Wow, you must have been pumped up.’ No, I wasn’t. I had 195 but the pin was like 170 plus 20. I'm trying to land it five to 15 short, that's 155-165 straight downwind. It’s a perfect 9-iron. It's easy math. Did exactly what it was supposed to do into that zone, bounced up on the green to 15 feet pin high.

GWK: People think that Watson got a bad break…(cuts me off)

SC: He made a terrible decision. He was in the middle of the fairway. Like I said, easiest tee shot of the day. I don’t remember what yardage he had but he hit the second shot right at that flag and he pured it but it carried like 10 yards past the front, carried way up on the green as soon as it landed I was like there’s no way that’s stopping. He hit one club too many.

I think most of the time the majors, the ones that are close, it comes down to one person just having a little bit of a mental breakdown and that was his moment. As soon as it landed on the green I was like this is a playoff. It was not a straightforward up and down at all, scraggly rough real deep hollow and you had to come up this sharp hill and then down. He did decent to get into whatever it was, 9-10 feet. The putt was always going to be like a super-nervy, difficult putt under the circumstances. The second shot did him in. I just felt like all the energy just left him. I just felt like I had a huge advantage going into a playoff.

GWK: You told me this before that you wanted to make sure you were second guy to the tee at the playoff.

SC: I went to a Porta-John and waited it out. I have no idea why they decided to start the playoff on No. 5, which is like an entire mile from the clubhouse. But that’s what they did and I knew there was a Porta-John out there. I'm like I don't want to get to the tee first; I want to get there second. I waited for him to get to the tee. It was a crappy plan but at least it was a plan.

GWK: Pun intended? How did you celebrate?

SC: We flew back the next day and when we landed some of our close friends had rented out a restaurant. Actually, one of the guys worked there. He sent a text, when you land, come to Houston's. So we had 50 of our closest friends show up and just partied for about four hours right there.

A week or so later, a guy I know who owned a restaurant closed it down. Just told us invite whoever you want. It's on us all the drinking, all the food. Just bring the trophy and we're going to celebrate together. So that was cool, too.

GWK: What’s the barbecue sauce story?

SC: We had a group of friends over to our lake house for dinner. We'd always cook barbecue anytime we got together. That night, we used the Claret Jug to pour the sauce at the table. We were getting into the wine pretty good. At the end of the night, I thought my buddy cleaned out the Jug and he thought I cleaned out the Jug. Somehow the Jug ended up getting in the case. That was three, four nights before we left to go back to the British Open. At that time, I knew a lot of the security people in Atlanta from going through security so often. They're like, ‘You know, we got to look at that in there.’ And I was happy to do it. You know, they're looking at the names and everything and all of a sudden sauce comes dripping out onto the foam siding that protects it. I was like, "Oh gosh, guys, we gotta put that back in there so I can clean it out."

I went straight to the men's room on the other side of the TSA. I cleaned it out in the bathroom and put it back into the case wet. So now the case has barbecue sauce and water and it’s gross. We were doing another trip to Ireland. When we landed in Dublin, the first thing I did was to get the Jug out, rinsed it out again, sat it upside down in the corner and let it air dry on a towel. I don't know what was still left in there when I returned it. Might have still had some previous stuff.

The Jug didn't get a whole lot of action when I had it. I loaned it to the five clubs in Atlanta that have made me an honorary member over the years. I let each of them keep it for a month. It just so happened that they all scheduled their member-guest during that month. I still get stories coming back to me, I played the member-guest at TPC Sugarloaf or River Club or whatever, you know. They all had their picture with it. I felt it was something that should be shared with people rather than just sit on a mantel at home and they all got to share in it. That was cool for me.