There’s hope PGA Tour brings back fans in 2021

Editor’s note: Stewart Cink is this year’s recipient of the Payne Stewart Award presented by the Southern Company. The annual award goes to a PGA TOUR golfer who excels in charity, character and sportsmanship – values displayed by the late Payne Stewart. Cink will be honored the week of the TOUR Championship.  It was nearly 30 years ago when Stewart and Lisa Cink met when they were in high school in Florence, Alabama. They had a class together, and he sat in the desk behind her. At the time, Stewart was dating one of the girls on Lisa’s softball team. In fact, he dated several of her friends. “I would try to set him up,â€� Lisa says. “I liked him. I thought he was fun and nice and all that. And it was all great until he dated one of my best friends our senior year.  “All of a sudden, I’m like, umm, I’m not sure how I feel about that.â€� But, Lisa adds, “It worked out the way it should have.â€� There were flirtations, to be sure, some dates and even the occasional kiss. But Lisa had a boyfriend and Stewart was usually attached, too. So, the friendship deepened even if romance was on the back burner. “We would study together and hang out,â€� Lisa recalls. “It was just easy because we were friends. There was no pressure.â€� Things evolved, though, when Lisa enrolled at Auburn and Stewart went to play golf at Georgia Tech. The two-hour drive between the two universities was hardly prohibitive, and by their sophomore year, the two had become serious. Lisa was attracted to Stewart’s sense of humor, calling him “sneaking funny. He comes off kind of shy and quiet, but he is hilarious.â€� She says he’s one of the smartest and most humble people she knows, too. “It doesn’t matter what stage of life he is or what stage of golf he is in, if he’s just won a major or missed the cut or lost his card or whatever, he’s the same,â€� Lisa explains. “He treats other people the same. I really like that.â€� And Lisa remembers exactly when she knew Stewart was the one. “I dated a guy at Auburn that on paper was like should have been perfect, like he was smart, really good‑looking and we got along well,â€� Lisa says. “He was fun. He liked me. I went home and told my mom, like, I found this guy who is amazing.  “But I remember being on a date with him and thinking, wow, I wish Stewart was here. That is kind of my epiphany. That was my moment.â€� During their sophomore year, the couple learned they were expecting a child. They decided to get married that summer, and Stewart took Lisa to one of their favorite spots near the river to propose. He was afraid he would drop the ring into the water, though, so he lost his nerve. “We ended going back to my parents’ house and he did it there,â€� she says. “A little less romantic but I guess a lot safer.â€� Safe, maybe, but this marriage was a sure thing. Their next anniversary will be the Cinks’ 25th. Not that life has always been easy. Finishing their degrees at Georgia Tech – Lisa had transferred from Auburn — while caring for Connor was a challenge but also the “biggest blessing that could have happened to us,â€� Lisa says. Friends stepped in to help, offering hand-me-down strollers and baby clothes, but the couple had a lot to figure out on their own. “Neither of us had any experience with babies,â€� she explains. “There were many, many, many nights where we were up all night with the baby and had a test the next day. I’m in tears and stressed.  “But through it all, I knew that this wasn’t something that happened to us.  It was something that came about because of our choices and that made a huge difference.  I felt like it was my responsibility and I needed to figure it out.  “But it also helped knowing there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  We were going to graduate.  This would not have kept us from graduating. That was something that was nonnegotiable.â€� Several years later, the Cinks had a second son, Reagan. Connor graduated from Clemson and is now working in Charlotte, while Reagan is a junior at his parents’ alma mater. Stewart and Lisa are empty-nesters now and she’s a regular in the 2009 Open champion’s gallery. “I miss my kids terribly and I’m lost without having that mom role day to day,â€� Lisa says. “But getting to travel and actually be with him, we’ve never been able to do that full time. It’s a lot of fun. It’s an adventure kind of getting to know things out here again.â€� Getting to travel the country with her husband became even more of a blessing last year when Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer. She says Stewart has been her safety net, her strength and her shoulder to cry on. The six-time TOUR winner has been actively involved in her battle from day one, doing research on her treatment and giving her the results “in a calm, kind of small dose kind of way to help me get my mind around what it is that I’m facing.  “But he’s also made a great balance, because he hasn’t let me completely focus on my diagnosis or treatment or whatever because of his chance to play out here,â€� Lisa says. “It’s been an amazing diversion. I’m not having to sit around and think about what ifs and what ares and that sort of thing.  Just him doing what he’s doing has also been great and normalizing things for me. “He is an emotional person but not a dramatic person. So, having the kind of stability has kept me very in the moment, very grateful and very focused on what’s ahead instead of what’s behind.â€� And of course, no one knows a TOUR player better than his wife. So now that you know a little more about this special courple, Lisa gives us 18 things you might not know about this year’s Payne Stewart Award winner. 1. He’s obsessed with all things BBQ and has a competition team with his swing coach Mike Lipnick and lifelong friend Chad Parker, who is the general manager at East Lake Golf Club. The team name? Que School 2. He has a tattoo. 3. He loves chick flicks and musicals. (His favorite Broadway show is Les Miserables and he has the soundtrack on his Spotify.) 4. He loves hiking, especially in Glacier National Park, Montana. 5. He geeks out for snow skiing. He makes an annual tradition of squeezing a day on the mountain in between the Sony Open in Hawaii and Career Builder Challenge in California. (The overnight flight from Honolulu-to-Salt Lake City lands at 7:10 a.m. and he’s on the chairlift by 9:30!) 6. He is pretty skilled at wake boarding and wake surfing. He has been known to clear the wake on his wakeboard 7. I surprised him with a Porsche for his 30th birthday, which he kept for the three-year lease. Since then he’s driven a pickup. 8. If this golf thing doesn’t work out, he will become a meteorologist. 9. He serves on the board of the Pregnancy Resource Center of Gwinnett. 10. He keeps the Claret Jug front and center by the kitchen instead of hidden away in the golf room or trophy case (Yes, we have a golf room complete with a putting green in our basement.) 11. He knows the lyrics to pretty much every song from The Sound of Music. 12. His favorite beer is Guinness and he swears it totally tastes better in Ireland. 13. He hates massages, pedicures and all things spa.  14. He just went through a four-year bluegrass/folk phase, which landed us at concerts such as Old Crow Medicine Show and Avett Brothers. 15. He wears a bite guard at night to keep from snoring, which has completely saved our marriage. 16. He was an avid skateboarder back in the day, hitting the half pipe on his Christian Hosoi board. 17. He is a dark chocolate addict, and is never found without 3 or 4 bars on him with varying flavors and nuts — but never below 60 percent cacao.  18. He goes on an annual “BBQ Tour” with fellow BBQ aficionado Davis Love III during the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, where they have visited up to four BBQ joints in a single night.

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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – U.S. Captain Davis Love III foresees Tiger Woods playing an important role in next year’s Presidents Cup. Woods’ duties are to be determined, however. “His role is whatever his role wants to be,” Love said Tuesday from the tournament he hosts, The RSM Classic. Woods’ future, especially as it pertains to his playing career, remains uncertain after his February car accident that caused major leg injuries. After his success as a playing captain in the previous Presidents Cup, Woods was a candidate to assume the role again at Quail Hollow in 2022. He turned it down, however, because he wanted to focus on his game. “It would have been a great captaincy for Tiger to continue on,” Love said. “At the time we were discussing it, he said, ‘No, I’m playing really good. I’m gonna make the team, and I enjoyed Australia being playing captain, but I want to be a player on the team.’ So his role is whatever his role wants to be. If Tiger calls me up and says, ‘Hey, you’re kicked out, I’m taking over,’ that’s Tiger’s role. If he wants to be an assistant, you know, I would hope that he comes back and starts playing and can make that a goal, to be on the team.” Woods was an assistant under Love III in the 2016 Ryder Cup and served a similar role for Steve Stricker at the 2017 Presidents Cup. Then Woods returned to his winning ways and played on the next two U.S. teams. He was unable to travel to this year’s Ryder Cup but stayed in communication with the team and aided with decisions. As for Phil Mickelson, Love thinks he may be at Quail Hollow as a player after missing the last two U.S. teams. Mickelson played on every U.S. squad from 1994 to 2018, but that streak came to an unceremonious end at the Ryder Cup in Paris. Mickelson went 0-2 as the U.S. was roundly defeated. He won this year’s PGA Championship, becoming the oldest major winner in history, but admitted in the months before Whistling Straits that his game was not good enough to qualify for the U.S. team. He made his debut as a vice captain, instead, entertaining the team with his banter on the walkie-talkies. Mickelson has dominated PGA TOUR Champions with four wins in six starts, however, and has a strong record at Quail Hollow, finishing in the top 10 in 10 of 16 starts in the Wells Fargo Championship at the Charlotte course. “I would look at Phil right now more getting ready to play. I think he can have a big year on the PGA TOUR,” Love said Tuesday. “I would look for Phil as a player right now, yes, more than anything.”

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LA QUINTA, Calif. – Scottie Scheffler and Andrew Landry have separated themselves from the field at The American Express, but the Stadium Course at PGA West was designed to encourage big swings in scoring. At 21 under par, Scheffler and Landry are four shots ahead of Rickie Fowler, who sits alone in third place. Only two more players – Ryan Moore and Chase Seiffert – sit within five strokes. RELATED: Leaderboard | Tee times | Fowler showcases new swing in final group  The co-leaders can’t take their eye off those pursuers, though. The Stadium Course was the 10th-easiest course on TOUR last season but also allowed a double-bogey or worse on 2.2% of the holes played. That was the 15th-highest rate on TOUR last season. “If you’re not on your game, you can really struggle,â€� Scheffler said. This is a course, after all, that TOUR players revolted against when it was first played in 1987. The late Pete Dye was ordered to make this Stadium Course, the Western version of his masterpiece at TPC Sawgrass, “the hardest damn golf course in the world.â€� It may no longer hold that title, but water still comes into play on several holes, including the island-green 17th and penal, par-4 18th. The two co-leaders have taken drastically different paths to the final group. Scheffler, last year’s Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year, has made a quick transition to the TOUR. He has five top-25s in seven starts this season, including three top-10s. He’s 24th in the FedExCup standings. Weekend scoring has been his only weakness. He leads the TOUR in first-round scoring (66.7) and ranks 12th in second-round scoring. He’s outside the top 100 in each of the final two rounds, though. Scheffler is only 23, though, and each experience has made him more comfortable. “I think this is my best chance, being tied for the lead going into the last round. I’ve gotten off to some good starts but I haven’t been in this position going into the final round. I feel like I’ve been chasing,â€� Scheffler said. “It will be nice to be up there near the lead and it will be a fun day.â€� Saturday was the third time this season that he teed off with at least a share of the 36-hole lead. He couldn’t keep pace the first two times, falling to fifth place both times. This will be the first 54-hole lead of his career. Landry, on the other hand, hasn’t played much on weekends lately. He’s missed the cut in seven of eight starts, and was 5 over par for the season entering this week. That included a 13-over-par performance at last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, where his rusty game – he was sick before making his 2020 debut – got caught up in the high winds. He is 178th in the FedExCup. Landry has one PGA TOUR win, at the 2018 Valero Texas Open, and one strong performance at this event to draw upon. He was runner-up two years ago after pushing Jon Rahm in a playoff. Rahm finally ended it by holing a 12-footer for birdie on the fourth extra hole.  Landry, playing in the final group, holed an 11-foot birdie putt on 18 to force the playoff. Landry also had an 8-footer for the win on the second extra hole and an 11-footer to extend the playoff, but missed both putts.  He also finished T28 at this event last year. He’s 58 under par in his last 11 rounds in this event, dating back to the first round two years ago. Ten of those rounds have been in the 60s.  “We build our schedule around golf courses that fit us. So this is one of them, it fits me,â€� Landry said Saturday. “I enjoy coming out here.â€� A win would make him love it even more.

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