Shrink Wrapped

It was simple math: Stewart Cink faced a 15-foot par putt that would potentially force a Monday playoff at the 2001 U.S. Open at Southern Hills. Even if Cink made it, playing partner Retief Goosen could roll in his 12-foot birdie try for the win. However, unlike Phil's Flop at Winged Foot or Van de Velde's Carn-oopsie, what came next was a two-car pileup. Cink missed the putt, but, in a hurry to get out ofGoosen's way, also missed the 18-inch comebacker. Then, the unflappable Goosen followed with a three-putt of his own, including another missed tap-in. The result: Cink's blown gimme cost him a spot in the playoff where Goosen defeated Mark Brooks. With the PGA Championship at Southern Hills this month, Cink hasn't tried to repress his momentous gaffe because, he says, "I don't try not to think about anything." But why did Cink do it? How did a trained professional with decades oftournament experience miss a putt that a toddler could convert? It's a question Cink, with his psychologist, still contemplates, and an answer he may never know.

The 2001 U.S. Open at Southern Hills must be a bittersweet memory.
It was pretty bitter. There wasn't a whole lot of sweetness to it.

How do you feel about returning for the PGA?
I don't believe that courses hold the same fate for people year after year. I played well, so I'm looking forward to going back, regardless of the last green. I'm sure there will be some moments where I'll relive some of the past; it's inevitable. I relive it all the time anyway. I'll be just a change of scenery.

Why do you relive it so often?
It's not like I can shove it away and act like it never happened. That wouldn't be very helpful.

How often do you think about it?
Obviously, that's a pretty big part of my career: I had a chance to win the U.S. Open and lost it. It's part of my therapy. It's not like I dwell on it all the time, but I really believe that things like that sort of injure you emotionally, cause you some harm on the inside. I don't think it's a good idea to lock those away in some box and pretend like it never happened, like some players do and like I used to do.

So you talk about it with Preston Waddington, your psychologist?
Sometimes, not all the time. Like I said, it's one of the six or seven moments in my career that have acute levels of emotional attachment.

It's not the most acute?
It's not, believe it or not. Golf treats you so rudely sometimes. One time I was leading the Colonial in the fourth round. I was playing with Davis (Love III) and I putted down from long range and went to tap in to get out of his way and missed. That had more impact on me because it was on the fifth hole. I just couldn't get over it. I was in the last group, leading by at least two or three shots, and I played bad the rest of the day and finished second. That was the day Phil (Mickelson) went low and posted a number in the clubhouse, and I was a mess. It happened before the Southern Hills one, which was more of a symptom of what was going on.

The yips, you mean?
Not really the yips. At times it was yippy. Colonial was more carelessness and embarrassment.

You've said that both misses, at the Colonial and at Southern Hills, occurred when you were trying to get out of somebody else's way.
That's true. At the U.S. Open there's no motivation for me to make that putt, because Retief has 10 feet for birdie and I'm putting for bogey. All that happens is if I make (the 18-inch putt) and he two-putts the tournament is over anyway. At the Colonial, embarrassment was the negative motivation for me. I started letting shots, scores, results, affect the way I was feeling, my sense of self. That's what me and Waddington — that's where our talks started.