Clearly, Northeast Ohio hosted some of the top golfers in the world last week at the Kaulig Companies Championship at Firestone Country Club.
This week, some of the same golfers who competed in Northeast Ohio last week, have traveled to the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Holylake, Merseyside, England to compete in the 151st British Open.
In particular, one golfer who competed in the Champions Tour (a professional golf tour for golfers over the age of 50) event last week was Stewart Cink.
Cink had great success last week as he finished in the top 10 of the Champions Tour major at -4.
This week, after the first round at the British Open, Cink is only two shots behind the leaders.
Currently, leading the British Open is 6 foot, 8 inch golfer, Christo Lamprecht who is an amateur from Georgia Tech University where he will be a senior.
Of course, somewhat fittingly, Georgia Tech is the same school that Stewart Cink played golf at from 1991-1995.
Also tied with Lamprecht is Tommy Fleetwood and Emiliano Grillo.
One stroke back at the British Open after the first round is Brian Harman, Antoine Rozner, and Adrian Otaegui.
Currently, Cink is two strokes back of the leaders at -3 as he is tied with Wydham Clark who won the 2023 U.S. Open, Max Homa, Alex Noren, and Subhankar Sharma.
As Cink has had a great past two weeks of golf, he has talked about the importance of the mental game of golf and focusing on getting into the right mindset before each golf shot.
Again, after he finished his excellent round today at the British Open, Cink talked about the importance of the mental game of golf.
In particular, Cink talked about how his caddie, his wife Lisa, is really helpful in keeping him focused mentally on the course.
“She’s kind of almost like a therapist out there for me, she just knows me so well,” said Cink. “The psychology of golf and the mentality and the emotional ebbs and flows are just to me a huge part of the game, and it’s something I really enjoy kind of learning about myself and monitoring, and she knows all that about me, and she can also be a good monitor like that. She’s really good about keeping my heart in the game and my head in the game. When things start to get off the rails a little bit, she’s there and really good about kind of reminding me about getting back where our two feet are, in the present. While she might not be as good about helping me decide if it’s a 4- or 5-iron, she’s really good about keeping me sort of where I need to be to be my best out there on the course.”
In addition to Cink discussing how his wife Lisa helps him stay focused on the present, he also discussed last week about how he tries to go through specific pre-shot behaviors in order to prepare his mind for each golf shot.
“I’d say it’s the most crucial part of executing a shot, and the reason is because I try to separate everything into two piles: One pile of things I can control and one pile of things I can’t control,” Cink said. The “can’t control” pile seems to get bigger and bigger and the “can control” stays finite. So process and the routine are one of those things that I can control. The idea is to flood your mind with that so that you don’t get flooded with like the outcomes, because in golf most of the outcomes aren’t great. There’s some that are really great and the rest of them really aren’t that great, and your mind naturally wants to go to those outcomes. So if you can keep your conscious mind focused on something like the process, and I don’t like the word “routine” there, then it helps you stay focused on the pile that you can control until the golf ball’s gone. Then you can just watch. Sometimes that’s excruciating, but that’s the whole purpose of the pre-shot routine right there.”
In addition to Cink, other Champions Tour players who played in the Kaulig Companies Championship last week in Akron and are now competing in the British Open this week include Darren Clarke (+2), John Daly (+6) and Ernie Els (+4).
Obviously, it is not possible to know for sure what will happen the next three days at the British Open, but it sure will be fun to watch Stewart Cink and the other players who participated last week in Akron now try to win the British Open.
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