Stewart Cink is showing he can still compete with the young guys.
The 50-year-old Stewart (pictured) shot four-under-par 67 and is tied for the lead with Kevin Streelman, Brendon Todd, Chandler Phillips and Mackenzie Hughes of Canada in the second round of the 23rd Valspar Championship in windy conditions on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla.
Play was halted by darkness for the second straight day, this time with 18 players still on the course, who will return to finish their second rounds before the 36-hole cut is made and the third round begin.
“There’s a reason that so many players rave about this course,” said Cink, who has won eight times on the PGA Tour, including the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry Resort in South Ayrshire, Scotland, in a playoff over legendary Tom Watson. “It requires everything, and so far this week, I’ve done everything fairly well.
“Being in contention feels the same way no matter where you are, to be honest. Obviously, the field is a little different here at Valspar than it was the last time I teed it up at Cologuard in Tucson. But it still feels the same and I didn’t have a very good finish there. … I should have won the tournament and I didn’t finish it off. I had a little bit of a meltdown.
“So, I’m just thrilled to be right back at the top of the leaderboard. I get another chance to learn some really great lessons and maybe some hard lessons this week again.”
Cink, who also plays on the PGA Tour Champions and recently led the Cologuard Classic on the Champions Tour at La Palma Country Club in Tucson, Ariz., before playing the last six holes in fiver-over-par and wound up in a tie for seventh, this time made three of his five birdies one his first six holes after starting on the back nine and sank a 21-foot eagle putt while recording a 36-hole score of six-under-par 136.
Streelman, the first-round leader at 64, birdied the last hole to salvage a 72, while Phillips made a 35-foot eagle putt on No. 14 in a second 68, Hughes sank a nine-foot eagle putt on the first hole to kick-start a 68, and Todd birdied three of the last five on the front nine in a 69.
“With the wind blowing that hard, you just had to expect that every once in a while a shot was going to go somewhere you didn’t want,” said Todd, who has won three times on seven times as a pro. “It happened a couple of times to me, but I was able to grind through it with a few birdies and a few great par saves.”
Two-time PGA champion Justin Thomas collected six birdies in a 69 is in a big tie for sixth with Michael Kim of San Diego and Cal, who birdied the last hole for a 67; Scott Stallings, who had three straight birdies on the front nine in another 67; Lucas Glover, who birdied two of the first four holes in a 69; Seamus Power of Ireland, who made a three-foot eagle putt on the first hole in another 69; Keith Mitchell, who had one birdie on each nine in a 70; Aaron Baddeley of Australia, who had three straight birdies on the front nine another 70; Peter Malnati, hole who birdied his last hole for a 71, and Rico Hoey of Rancho Cucamonga and USC, who was five-under-par for the tournament and one-under for the day through 16 holed when darkness came.
Fifth-ranked Xander Schauffele of La Jolla and San Diego State, the 2001 Olympic Gold Medalist, is tied for 30th after a 72, while defending champion Taylor Moore struggled to a 73 and is tied for 57th, and eight-ranked Brian Harman wound up at 70-70—144 and will miss the cut.
For complete results and later third-round tee times, visit: https://www.pgatour.com/leaderboard
