Stewart Cink shares his thoughts on what he does that makes him one of the longest and most accurate drivers of the golf ball on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions.
We’re back here on Golf Channel Academy with Stuart Sink full swing special. Stuart, we’ve made it all the way through the bag. The head cover has come off. So, let’s talk about the driver. Yeah. I feel like, you know, over the years you’ve wanted some really tight golf courses, Firestone, Hilton Head, places where you had to find the fairway. So, talk us through the mechanics of your golf swing, things that you think about to hit to to find fairways with the biggest stick in the back. Oh, when when I’m swinging well, I feel like I’m I’m a lot more rotary than I am lateral movement, especially with my lower body. Big key for me is early rotation from the top of my swing where I go ahead and start using the ground and get it rotation this way where my left leg is a good post early. The other part of what I try to do and I can’t do too much of is the opposite of the stand up. I try to really feel like I’m going out and down with my head like out over the ball. So, in my mind, I’m actually envisioning seeing an extra dimple on the outside of the ball on the down swing because it keeps me out and it keeps me from doing this. So, let’s try one here. I’ll go um with really early rotary and then I’ll try to look and see that extra dimple on the outside of the ball in the down swing. Now that’s uh that’s going to play on most courses. All right, looks I want to see another one. That was from this angle. I could see what you were talking about how you were staying down over it longer. But that that’s one of those the two things I’m talking about are two things I cannot do too much of. Okay. So I I get on a tea where I feel pressure. I feel nervous. I feel like you know sometimes your ego just wants those results really bad. And of course you know it’s natural to want them. So ball position pretty standard. Yeah. I mean a little forward. I mean what we’ve learned from the launch monitor in the launch monitor era is that you know it helps to kind of attack the ball on the way up a little bit. You can gain club head speed and ball speed that way. And so I I subscribe to that and I try to move the ball position up a hair with my driver but um not not an extreme amount. I would much rather catch it, you know, on a little bit lower ball flight and have it in the fairway. Right. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always I’ve always admired the way that your tempo has really maintained the same throughout all these years. I do think it’s interesting how you said that a squeeze cut is your go-to shot, but it’s not something that you necessarily visualize when you’re on the first te of the Rder Cup and you have to find that first fairway. It’s more about what things in your swing that you that you can’t overdo than it is about really trying to hit the shot. That’s the key. Actually, um, the first time I played the Ryder Cup, I had that very same scenario facing me, how to how to deal with the first T- shot. I was playing with Jim Furick, an alternate shot, and I thought I came up with a really great solution. Right before we went to the first TE, I switched it, and I had I didn’t have to hit the first T- shot. I let him hit it, and he hit the fairway. All right, so I hit the second shot. Here, show us one more. That’s So, um, going back to what you said about like a cut, a squeeze cut is the kind of shot that I’ve envisioned. Um, you know, it’s kind of like a what came first, chicken or the egg kind of situation. For me, if if I rotate early like I want to, can’t do too much of it, and I get out over the ball and down on the down swing, again, can’t do too much of it, that puts the club kind of on a out to end plane just a hair. So, the ball has a little cut on it. Yeah. I’m not trying to produce a cut. I’m trying to do what I know I can’t do too much of. And if I do it right, it produces a cut. You understand what I mean? There’s a distinction. If you do what you’re trying to do, it will produce that shot. That’s the key. Yeah, that’s the key. All right. So, you tell me. What are we doing with this shot? I think it’s going to early rotary. I think it’s going to fade about a yard and a half. All right. Important. Now, I’m going to try to go down with my head and see an extra dimple on the outside of the ball and rotate real early. I That’s about as good as I can hit four straight drivers. ship.
