On Monday, April 14, the day after he and Tiger Woods failed to win the Masters, Stewart Cink took it easy at his house in suburban Atlanta.
In the morning he watched a tape of the final round, fast-forwarding through others' shots while hoping to analyze how his swing held up under the pressure. One problem.
"They didn't show me hitting a shot after the 4th hole," says Cink, who was both amused and disappointed. "They showed me putting but no shots."
That afternoon Cink did a bunch of phone-in radio interviews, falling asleep during one of them.
"Yeah, I actually dozed off," he says. "I blamed it on my cellphone going out."
Playing at Augusta National, the game's most glamorous and stressful stage, saps a player's energy the way kryptonite drains Superman. If you're in contention on the weekend (Cink finished third), and you're paired with Tiger in the final round (as Cink was), when the first major championship of the season is over, you'll probably crash like a college kid after an all-nighter.
But there's a cure for Masters Hangover, and it's not "take two green jackets and call me in the morning." It's the Verizon Heritage, at Harbour Town Golf Links on South Carolina's Hilton Head Island (a.k.a. the Head), the most relaxing stop on the PGA Tour.
The Head is where wounds heal, spring hits its sweet stride, and pros decompress and rejuvenate.
Cink sensed that Masters week had taken a toll as he drove back home from Augusta with his wife, Lisa, after the final round.
"I noticed I was having a hard time putting thoughts into words," he says. "I probably shouldn't have been behind the wheel. I was so drained, although I didn't really realize it at that moment."
The Cinks arrived home at 12:30 a.m. and got to bed around 2. "You'd think I would've slept all day [Monday], but I wanted to see the coverage," says Cink, who watched the replay while the kids were at school and Lisa, a part-time teacher, was at work.
Cink had his second wind by dinnertime, and he took Lisa and their children, Connor, 14, and Reagan, 11, to their favorite Mexican restaurant. He even watched a movie — Best Laid Plans, starring Reese Witherspoon — before he "zonked out."
The next day, Tuesday, Cink hitched a ride to the Head on a friend's plane. "But I was a wreck," Cink says. Going straight from the airport to Harbour Town, Cink took part in a Nike outing on the practice range, hitting shots and talking, and then signed autographs for an hour.
"It was like trying to keep my eyelids propped open with toothpicks," he says.
Cink tried to practice a little later but had "nothing" in the tank. He was a wreck on Wednesday, pro-am day, too.
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