Castle Rock – Some PGA Tour players call the layout of Castle Pines Golf Club “a bear.”
After spending last week camping in the Tetons near Jackson Hole, Stewart Cink may prefer to use another term. Otherwise, he just might flinch.
Shaking off frayed nerves remaining from a bear scare, Cink opened The International with 11 points, good for a tie for second place. He played steady golf throughout, reaching 15 of 18 greens in regulation and hitting 10 of 14 fairways.
A week earlier, Cink probably wished he had one of those fat-headed drivers in his tent. Cink and his family backpacked into the wilderness, about 100 yards from other campers. Just before they fell asleep, somebody from the neighboring campsite tapped on the tent and asked if anybody was home.
“I kind of popped my head out of the tent and he said, ‘I hope your food is hung up, because we just had a bear in our camp.”‘
Cink stayed up through the night, getting an elbow from his nervous wife when he began to nod off. The bear never showed.
“So it wasn’t exactly a scare,” Cink said Thursday. “But it was scary. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to defend yourself against something like that.”
Despite one tense night, Cink called it a relaxing vacation, which he hopes left him “with a really good attitude and feeling fresh” for a long stretch of golf, starting this week.
He felt loose enough Thursday to give a new club a whack – with excellent results. Cink used a new 21-degree Nike hybrid club for his second shot on the 644-yard, par-5 No. 1, which was his 10th hole. From 278 yards, Cink launched it to within 10 feet and made the eagle putt for 5 points.
Cink usually puts a 7-wood in his bag for The International but realized upon his arrival that he forgot to add it. He called Nike and asked for a club that could replace a 3-iron, but with a higher trajectory.
“(The hybrid) stops faster on the green,” Cink said. “If my 3-iron had carried the same distance on No. 1, it would have gone to the back rough. I probably wouldn’t be in here talking to (the media).
“You can take advantage of this altitude and the design of this course with your equipment if you really put your mind to it.”
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-820-5456 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
