Stewart Cink looking to end drought

HONOLULU, Hawaii – Stewart Cink is looking to continue a trend from 2018 on the PGA TOUR. The 45-year-old hasn’t won on TOUR for nearly nine and a half years but he was a keen observer last year as no less than 11 players broke significant win droughts. On Friday at the Sony Open in Hawaii Cink put up an 8-under 62 to move to 10 under, within striking distance of Matt Kuchar’s 14 under lead. Indeed Kuchar (1,667 days) was one of the players to break a drought in 2018. Charles Howell III (4,292 days), Paul Casey (3262 days), Kevin Na (2,472 days), Keegan Bradley (2,227 days), Ted Potter Jr. (2,045 days), Ian Poulter (1,975 days), Tiger Woods (1,876 days), Phil Mickelson (1,687 days), Webb Simpson (1,666 days) and Gary Woodland (1,646 days) also snapped the famine. Sunday would represent 3,466 days since Cink claimed the 2009 Open Championship in a playoff over Tom Watson for his sixth TOUR win. He had his chances last season. Cink finished T4 at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, T2 at the Travelers Championship and T4 at the PGA Championship last summer showing there is plenty of life in his game. On Friday he needed just 24 putts on the way to nine birdies with just a lone bogey. “It was a great day out there. Really all facets of the game were firing,â€� Cink enthused. “Drove it well and hit a lot of good irons. Rolled in a lot of putts from the range that really makes a difference in your score, which is like, say, 10 to 20 feet. Had a lot of putts like that and made a lot today. “That’s kind of a hallmark of my game over my whole career, is I do have a lot of putts in that range because usually I’m one of the better ball-strikers. When you see them going in the game feels a little bit easy.â€� Indeed Cink gained over two and a half strokes on the field in Strokes Gained: Putting Friday. He was 15 of 18 inside 20-feet.

Click here to read the full article…