No fairytale as Cink steps out of shadows

STEWART CINK is a fine golfer, a gentleman and a worthy winner of the 138th Open Championship.

But the first major victory for the 36-year-old, 6 ft 4 inch resident of Duluth, Georgia, at Turnberry yesterday was widely regarded as an anti-climax of massive proportions. It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve his long overdue success – Cink returned the best score, 69, of the seven players under par when the final round began – but Tom Watson, just seven weeks short of his 60th birthday, was the man the whole world wanted to win.

And he would have done so for a sixth time and equalled Harry Vardon’s age-old record with a par four at the 18th, a hole playing relatively easily in the prevailing conditions. But his approach from the middle of the fairway trickled over the back of the green and he took three more to get down. Instead of pulling off arguably the greatest golfing story of this or any other generation, Watson was a soft touch in the four-hole play-off for Cink, 23 years his junior.

“I was undecided between a nine and an eight iron at the last,” said Watson. “I chose the eight and caught it the way I wanted. In the air, I said ‘that’s good’, but it went too far. The putter from the edge of the rough looked right but I hit that too hard as well and then hit a lousy putt. As for the play-off, it was just one bad shot after another and I didn’t give Stewart much of a match.

“But obviously I can take a lot out of this. There was great warmth toward me and there was a spirituality out there, by which I mean there was something that helped me along. And of course there are the memories I will always have of Turnberry. Winning this would have been another but it wasn’t to be”.

Cink’s victory again demonstrated the value of playing Irish links prior to the Open. He made Doonbeg his headquarters last week and tackled the new Greg Norman course there as well as the longer established Lahinch and Ballybunion in the company of his 15 year-old son Connor who, of course, was present last night to congratulate dad along with sister Reagan, 12, and mum Lisa.

“I felt very confident all week about the course and I was over in Ireland last week playing some links with my family and that was great relaxation and preparation”, he said. “The last time I did so was in 2007 when I finished 6th at Carnoustie. So I think there’s a correlation and I’ll certainly be going back next year”.

He actually played the final round on that occasion with the eventual champion, Pádraig Harrington, an experience that helped him coming down the stretch yesterday. He birdied the short 15th, a relatively innocuous looking hole, only to miss out on the apparently essential birdie at the par five 17th before playing the 18th to perfection as he rolled in a 12-footer for a three that was to prove all-important.

The play-off was close to an embarrassment. The older man never had a chance, falling one behind at the 4th, somehow eking out a “half” at the next before completely collapsing at the 17th, where he took seven to Cink’s birdie four, leaving four between them playing the 18th. Watson was again in trouble at the 18th whereas the new champion knocked his approach to a couple of feet for birdie to make it a 20-14 rout.

“It’s been a surreal experience for me, not just to win a wonderful tournament but playing against Tom Watson, it just doesn’t happen”, he said. “I grew up watching Tom Watson on TV and hoping one day I could follow in his footsteps but never dreamt that I would go head to head with him in a major play-off. It’s beyond my wildest dreams.

“The same guy who won the Duel in the Sun showed up today and the way he turned back the clock was amazing. I realised the crowd were behind him just as they were when I played with Lee Westwood on Saturday and on other occasions when I played with Tiger and Mickelson. So that helped me cope with the obvious emotions of the occasion. I just feel so happy to be a part of this. It’s impossible to explain why it has happened … that putt on the 18th will be the most crucial that I ever struck in my life, nothing else comes even close”.

England’s wait for a first champion since Nick Faldo in 1987 continues but nobody will dispute the fact that Lee Westwood was the unluckiest player in the field yesterday. How his 15-foot eagle putt at the 17th stayed out will forever remain a mystery and it almost beggared belief how his tee shot at the 18th ran and ran down the fairway until trickling into a bunker.

Even then, he hit a stupendous recovery to the front of the green, charged his putt ten feet past and missed the one back. It was his second time in 13 months missing out on a major championship play-off by a single stroke, having suffered the same fate in last year’s US Open at Torrey Pines where Tiger Woods finally saw off Rocco Mediate.

“No, I never thought I had it, not even after my second shot out of the rough at the 17th,” said the Englishman. “It was one of those days when you couldn’t think, yeah, I’ve got this. I played great all week and 3rd place in a major championship is not to be sniffed at. Last year’s US Open and now this are pretty sickening but this is the Open and it’s the one that means most to me.”

Westwood's compatriot Ross Fisher led by two strokes, but ran up a horrendous quadruple bogey eight at the 5th that included a penalty shot and was never a factor afterwards.

So Pádraig Harrington has had to release his grip on the claret jug he has held over the past couple of years. A share of 65th place left him at the tail end of the field and was a bitter disappointment to his legion of fans.

He himself, however, claimed to be relatively untroubled and incredibly claimed “I would still say I am better now than a year ago”.

At that moment he had retained the Open and was about to capture the US PGA Championship!