| Driving Force |
 Stewart Cink is a world-class golfer, who’s known the game’s highs and lows. But he copes with the peaks and troughs because Christ is in his life. This year, golf’s Open Championship returns to the home of golf, St Andrews. The Open is by some distance the oldest of golf’s four majors. Eight players played in the first ever Open Championship in 1860, competing over three rounds of the 12 hole Prestwick Golf Club. The winner was Willie Park by two shots, and the prize was a handsome belt of red morocco leather, richly ornamented with heavy silver plates. There was, of course, no prize money. The Open gained in stature in the 1960s when the top American players like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus added it to their schedule on a regular basis. It is always played in July and always played on a seaside or links course. The 2010 Open has the added interest of Tiger Woods’ return after his off-course indiscretions. St Andrews is a course where he has previously been successful in the Open,winning in 2000 and 2005, but he has yet to recover his past form. The defending champion is Stewart Cink, who ended Tom Watson’s epic run last year in a play-off. A winner six times in his career on the US tour, Cink’s form has slumped since last year and he now stands 26th in the world ranking. In 2008 he was runner-up to Tiger Woods in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, and finished third in the US Masters as well as taking second place in the PODS championship. He has played in four Ryder Cups (USA v Europe) and three President’s Cups (USA v The Rest of the World). Golf has always been part of his life. “My parents used to take me to the golf club because it was easier than getting a babysitter and I would play on the cart,” he says. “People ask me when I started playing golf. The answer is that I don’t know, because it was earlier than I can remember. “My first breakthrough came in a junior tournament in Alabama where I lived when I was eight. There were only two players in the under-eleven section and I won. The following year I lost to Brian Gay – now a US tour player – who even got a hole in one. So by the age of nine, I had learnt that it was more fun to win than to lose.” He got a scholarship to Georgia Tech, which gave him the chance to practise a lot and develop his game. But a chance encounter was to change his life. “The golf team had lunch together each day. Once a player brought a friend who was a church minister. The minister ask me if I died that day, would I go to heaven or hell. “I replied, ‘heaven’ – because I was a good person, I did not cheat on the golf course, and I would help an old lady across the road. I was embarrassed by the question because guys don’t talk about personal things like that.  “It was seven years before I learned the right answer to that question – that I could only go to heaven because Jesus died on a cross to take care of my sins. There is no one who is perfect and the basis of my life is believing that Jesus died for my sins. “I don’t believe in Jesus in order to get more birdies but it gives me a great sense of peace. Having Christ in my life makes the valleys less deep and the peaks less steep. “Winning tournaments and playing Ryder Cups are great but they only last a week – in Jesus I have something that will last forever.” Stewart can also see the funny side of his Christian faith. One day he was playing a par three and his playing partner and he hit identical shots past the pin – his partner’s ball stuck in the fringe, Stewart’s spun back beside the hole. As they walked off, he heard the other player say: “That was a Christian bounce – we don’t get any of them!” By Stuart Weir |
| < Prev |
|---|
