Cink chases Schwab Cup title but really wants to be Ryder Cup captain
When Stewart Cink played on the PGA Tour, one of his goals each year was to qualify for and win the Tour Championship. Now that he’s made the successful transition to the senior circuit, the target has shifted to the Charles Schwab Cup, the season-ending championship for PGA Tour Champions.
Cink is No. 3 on the points list entering this week’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship and one of five players in the field who could claim the $1 million bonus prize with a win. Only Steven Alker and Miguel Jimenez are ahead of Cink going into this week’s tournament at Phoenix Country Club.
If he wins this week, as he already has done twice this season, Cink almost certainly will win the Schwab Cup.
“I like the idea of a nothing-to-lose scenario, just kind of win or go home,” Cink said. “My goal has been to win this thing all year, and I haven’t quite done enough yet to sew it up. But it’s not an impossibility.”
Cink, the Georgia Tech great and 2009 British Open champion, has thrived this year on the senior circuit. Cink, 52, has won twice — the Insperity Invitational and the Ally Challenge — both times in a playoff. He has three runner-up showings, 14 top 10 finishes and 18 top 25s in 20 starts.
“My expectations are pretty high because I’m one of the youngest on the Champions tour,” he said. “It’s kind of an upside-down model compared to most sports when you’re a rookie and you’re just trying to get your feet wet. On the Champions tour you start at the top of your game and kind of slowly fade away.”
But age hasn’t diminished Cink’s competitive urges. They burn just as they did during his time on the PGA Tour, when he won eight times — the last in 2021 when he was 47 — and played on five Ryder Cup teams and four Presidents Cup teams.
“Everybody out here loves to compete,” he said. “That’s the one thing I keep hearing players talk about. The PGA Tour is the pinnacle of golf in the world and, because of that, it has to be treated like a business. That in a way kind of squeezes a little bit of the fun out of the competition. When you come to the senior tour, you’ve already done all that, and you have a chance to go out and be a raw competitor and go play and have fun and put yourself in the mix and try to win. You win some, you lose some. It’s really fun, and you get to do it all with people you’ve known for years.”
In addition to his playing activity, Cink serves as host for the annual Mitsubishi Electric Classic at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, where he and wife, Lisa, formerly lived.
Cink also has made it known he would like to be considered for the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s captain for 2027. He was active on the regular PGA Tour until he was 50, so he knows all the players, he has a major championship, and he has experience as a vice captain in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. That checks a lot of boxes.
“I would be more than honored. I would be over the moon,” he said. “I’ve kind of put myself out there. It’s not something you go and call a meeting and say, “Hey, by the way, I want to be the captain.’ It’s not like that — maybe it is and I don’t know it — so the only way you can get your desires out there is by using the media, so every interview I do nowadays, I at least throw in that I would love to be the Ryder Cup captain and represent the team. I’d love to turn it around for the USA overseas and try to get a win.”
The 2027 Ryder Cup matches will be played at Adare Manor in Ireland. Cink’s main competition for the captaincy likely will include Tiger Woods, who turned down the position in 2025, and 2025 captain Keegan Bradley.
About the Author
Stan Awtrey has been covering sports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1977. He currently writes about high school sports, Georgia State University athletics and golf.
