Stewart Cink Considers Himself a Native Georgian

September 17th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

British Open champion and TPC Sugarloaf resident Stewart Cink has some 900,000 followers on Twitter, the social networking site.  That’s just one interesting fact you probably didn’t know about Cink whose stories poking fun at himself brought laughs and merriment to Wednesday’s Atlanta Press Club luncheon at The Commerce Club.   Tweets, he says, are “mostly just stuff that comes to mind.”
This particular week is time off for professional golf’s elite players before the year’s 30 best gather next weekend at East Lake Country Club for the fourth and final tournament of the PGA’s three-year-old FedEx Cup championship series.  Cink earned his entry with steady year-long play and a stunning four-hole British Open playoff victory over Olde Tom Watson.
Cink enters the tournament ranked 26th with a mathematical but micro chance to win the sterling silver Fed Ex Cup that glistened next to The Commerce Club podium where he spoke to approximately 75 luncheon guests.  Tiger Woods leads the glittery field in which several others also have legitimate mathematical chances to win.

East Lake Country Club and the neighborhood are special places for Cink.  The course is where his golf game began to mature when Cink played for Georgia Tech from 1991-95.  Back then, the East Lake Club course glistened, but the neighborhood did not.  The story of its resurrection, led by Atlanta developer icon Tom Cousins, is well told, and appreciated by Cink.  “I remember being there when nobody wanted to be there,” said Cink.

Next Wednesday, just a day before the championship begins, Cink will conduct another of what he calls his “little clinics” for kids.  These began years ago with “kids of the community, kids who didn’t have any place to go.”  Perhaps their parents were at work, or perhaps gone.  These were kids who needed someone to rescue them.  Golf would help.
“The real story of East Lake is these kids,” Cink said, “and what they’ve been able to do.  I’m still part of it.”

Cink’s British Open playoff victory over Watson is golf’s defining moment this season.  Watson’s missed short putt on 18 prevented him from winning a sixth Open and his first since 1983.  Cink swept Watson easily in the four-hole playoff, earning him the title “Shrek of the Links” in next morning British papers, which he considered just good-natured ribbing. “I don’t think I had anybody rooting against me, but they were all pulling for Tom Watson, their hero,” Cink said.

As for the Claret Jug that came home to Duluth from Turnberry, so far it has been filled with Guinness, Harp, Coca-Cola, water and champagne.  “It’s been dry now for a few weeks,” he said.  “Maybe it’s time to fill it up!”

The Atlanta Press Club thanks Coca-Cola as presenting sponsor along with the Georgia Link Public Affairs Group and Dewberry Capital as program sponsors. Their financial support made the luncheon possible.

The next Press Club luncheons are Thursday October 8 with Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, Tuesday October 13 with CBS Correspondent Byron Pitts and Wednesday October 14 with Pulitzer Prize winning author Taylor Branch.  All three luncheons will begin at noon at The Commerce Club, 34 Broad Street in downtown Atlanta.

Written by:  Mike Klein
APC Board Member

 

www.mikekleinonline.com

 

 

 

Steve Burns another guest of the Cink luncheon wrote about the golf pro:

http://humanclippingservice.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/golfer-cink-is-shrek-in-britain/



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