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Cink feeling right at
home at Doral
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| MIAMI — The feel of familiar
Bermuda grass under his feet and balmy sunshine on his face can change
Stewart Cink's attitude and his expectations, which is why he was not
surprised to be leading the Genuity Championship. Coming off a wet,
unpredictable West Coast Swing in which he had only one top 10 in six
tournaments, Cink blistered the Blue Monster for a bogey-free 66 on
Friday and took a two-stroke lead over Hal Sutton and Mike Weir. "I feel comfortable here," said Cink, whose 14-under 130 was one stroke shy of the 36-hole record at Doral. "I don't see why I can't keep going. You gain confidence from what you did in the past, not what you expect in the future." He got nothing out of his recent past, a West Coast schedule of two missed cuts, cold and wet weather, tricky poa annua greens and not much to get excited about. |
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"When I go out to the West Coast, I feel if I made the cut, finish in the top 20, I've done OK," Cink said. "Maybe my expectations change a little when I come back here." Despite making 14 birdies without a bogey over two relatively calm days at Doral, Cink still has plenty of work left. Sutton, playing without pain for the first time
since May, relied on his solid driving to get in position for seven
birdies in a round of 66 that left him at 132 Weir was eight strokes worse than his opening 62, but hardly upset with himself. The wind picked up in the afternoon and came out of the opposite direction, a change the Canadian said can make the Blue Monster act like one. |
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"It is tough to follow up a great round with another one," Weir said. "But in my case today, it was more the conditions. I'm not totally satisfied with a 70, but I'm not all that disappointed." Weir had his share of bad breaks, especially when his drive on No. 17 went into a bunker and stopped in a heel print that a caddie forgot to rake. He was forced to play a shallow shot away from the green and made bogey. But he saved his round with a gutsy play on the 18th, his ninth hole. From 200 yards in the left rough and blocked by a low-hanging tree, he hit a 3-iron out over the water and tried to bring it back into the crossing wind. The ball landed in the rough just over the water, he hacked out to 25 feet and made the putt for par. |
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| Weir studies his putt on 18. | ||
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Cink had no such worries. For the second day in a row, he missed only four greens and never came terribly close to anything but par or better. All of his birdie putts were inside 10 feet, and the only time he felt he had to scramble was on the par-5 first. He hit a fairway bunker off the tee, hit it fat coming out and had 8-iron into the green. That stopped 5 feet away for birdie. "My round was kind of average, if 66 could ever be average," Cink said. "I'll go into the next few rounds feeling pretty good." The cut was at 3-under 141, tying the record at Doral that was set last year. "I think you better look for another job if you shoot par," Sutton said. No one knows that better than Davis Love III, who is trying to continue his torrid stretch of golf. He made the turn at 10 under, just one out of the lead when he chopped up the par-5 first hole, the easiest on the Blue Monster. Love missed his drive to the left, a palm tree restricting his follow-through. He hit out well right of the green, and his flop from the gnarly rough bounced into more thick grass framing the bunker. He hacked out 15 feet short of the cup and made bogey. Love slapped the ground with his wedge in disgust. Making par is like losing ground in these conditions, and a bogey can make you lose it. Love had two more bogeys on his back nine, and wound up with a 71, five strokes out of the lead at 135. |
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