Stewart Cink has seen it all when it comes to Open Championships.
The 2009 Champion Golfer of the Year, who beat Tom Watson in a playoff at Turnberry in 2009, has played in golf’s oldest major since 1998.
But even a man of Cink’s experience was caught off guard by the condition of Royal Birkdale in round one of this year’s Open Championship, where he shot an opening round of 74.
Stewart Cink explains why Royal Birkdale is ‘different’ this year
This is Cink’s fourth time playing at Royal Birkdale, but he said it was totally different this time. The golf course has been baked by the red-hot British sun this summer, and with virtually no wind, it presented a unique challenge.
Speaking after his round, the 53-year-old said, “This is my fourth time playing at Birkdale, and the first three times it was very similar each time. It was kind of lush and green and extremely windy.
“This is not the Birkdale I’ve ever seen before. Lush would be the opposite of the way to describe this place right now, and obviously very calm. The wind was kind of not there and then when it picked up it shifted about 90 degrees or more today. It’s a different Birkdale.
“It’s way different. But that’s kind of what you expect over here. The golf courses are just — they are how the weather goes.
“They’re either fast and firm and dry and fiery and dusty or they’re — they’re never really soft, but they can be lush and green and a little slower, and this week we’ve got it very dry, and it’s a lot of fun.”
And having played in this major for nearly 30 years, Cink thinks he knows the best strategy to navigate Birkdale this week.
Stewart Cink names the key to winning around Royal Birkdale this week
Cink, having played 18 holes at Royal Birkdale, thinks the best way to navigate the course is conservatively. But that’s a challenge when irons are rolling out so far.
He said, “Well, the main thing is if you’re going to play conservatively, you just need to know how much your ball is going to roll when you hit the fairway.
“You’re landing it way short of the bunkers. If you’re going to try to lay up to the bunkers at, say, 280, you’re only going to land it at like 220. But the problem with that is is if you are offline with that shot you’re going to land it 220 in the rough and it’s going to stop.”
In his post round interview, Robert MacIntyre said that keeping driver in the bag might be the best option this week. Cink gave his thoughts on that:
“Most of the time I do. I wasn’t trying to say that there’s as much risk from doing that as there is in hitting driver, not at all. Because you have way more control with your 4- and 5-iron off the tee than you do with the driver.
“There’s a lot of holes where the cross bunkers, the second set of bunkers is not just on the edge of the fairway but it’s in the fairway, and if you hit driver you’re just going to mindlessly roll into those, which is not smart.
“So I think the course still is going to demand mostly conservative play, but there’s times where you can hit drivers and you just have to be on the correct side.
“The rough is pretty trampled down and dry and thin so you can play from the rough most of the time, but you don’t want to play from the rough all the time. It will bite you; it’s just not going to bite you every time.”
Cink will need to lean on all his experience and knowledge to battle back above the cut line tomorrow.
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