A Cink-ing feeling at The Players

Florida Times-Union sports columnist Gene Frenette is at The Players Championship all week and providing daily reports for jacksonville.com This is his entry for Saturday May 10.


Most of the time, PGA Tour players make the game of golf look easy, but occasionally, they can look like 20-handicappers.
Such was the case for Stewart Cink at the par-five No. 2 hole, where he needed five shots to get in the hole from about 45 feet away.
Cink's approach shot barely rolled off the back of the green and down a grass embankment that was pretty well shaved down. He had about 25 feet of hill to get up, but Cink's first attempt with a wedge stopped about a foot short of the top before rolling back near its original spot.
He pulled out a 9-iron for his next attempt, but the result was the same. Cink's ball stopped just before reaching the top of the hill and came back down. For his fifth shot, he took out his putter, rammed it up the hill, but not far enough. Cink found himself almost in the same place he was three shots earlier.
Finally, with his second putt attempt, the ball made it up to the green and rolled within a foot of the cup for a tap-in double bogey.
"All in all, it took two perfect shots to end up where I did [behind the green]," Cink said. "I should not have made worse than a par there. I guess I learned my lesson."
Had Cink's 3-iron approach from 240 yards stayed on the green, he would have likely had no worse than a 15-foot putt for eagle. Instead, he put himself in an early hole. Cink was 4-over-par after eight holes, but played the last 11 in three-under to finish with a 73 and a 219 total (3-over-par) for the tournament.
While Cink made a nice recovery from a front-nine disaster, playing partner Adam Scott made his move up the leaderboard with four birdies in the first six holes before cooling off with three bogeys and winding up with a 71. It was a virtual repeat of Thursday's opening round when he made three birdies in the first five holes, then stumbled to a 75. Scott stands at one-over-par 217 going into Sunday's final round.