Bare In Mind

Stewart Cink ran naked across the green at the Travelers Championship.

Well, sort of.

Before you go to YouTube in search of video footage, know that Cink's definition of this kind of activity strays from the norm. For him, it means stepping out of his comfort zone. Being aggressive when his tendency is to be tentative in the big spot. Not thinking about the consequences. Just going for it.

"I've been unwilling to do that," said Cink. "[But] I decided I am going to run across the green naked. I'm not going to leave anything in the bag. I'm just going to go for it. If I finish third or fourth every time I have the lead going into the last round, then at least I've given it a shot. But today it worked out in my favor."

That it did. The fully (and colorfully) clothed Cink fired a final-round 67 to edge Hunter Mahan and Tommy Armour III by one shot.

Cink's caution-to-the-wind attitude came courtesy of his wife, Lisa, after a skull session necessitated by Cink's kicking away the PODS Championship in March when he played the final six holes three over par to hand the title to Sean O'Hair. At his press conference after that tournament, Cink said, "I'm a little shell-shocked and a little bit angry. I'm extremely frustrated after this. What happened to me—what I allowed to happen to me—is going to make me a better player in the future. But I've got some soul-searching to do."

The soul-searching started right away. Speaking to his wife, Cink relayed his disappointment not only for having won just once in nine tries when holding or sharing the 54-hole lead, but also in his lack of aggressiveness in those situations. Said Cink after the PODS, "That's not a coincidence. It's like I'm a little bit tentative."

Lisa Cink was anything but. Not one to pull punches (in 2002 Lisa told Stewart his putting problems stemmed from the yips—an assessment that did not go over well at first), she gave her husband a single line that brought with it an important message.

"You have to be willing to run naked across the green."

The words struck Cink not only due to their meaning, but because of the messenger who delivered it. Lisa and Stewart Cink have been together since Stewart was 14, and they recently celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. Theirs is a partnership in every sense of the word.

"I really admire her ability to stand outside the game of golf and get inside the heads of players, including mine, and just come up with the right thing to say," said Cink. "The way she can simplify things. When she talks about stuff, I listen. She's an extra pair of eyes that can see in and see what's so obvious that I never see at all."

The one thing Cink had no trouble seeing Sunday was a crowded leader board where at one point early in the round 17 players were within three shots of him. Making that even more nerve-racking was that the scores at TPC River Highlands more closely resembled those you might find at a par-3 course. Rounds of 66-64-65 gave Cink just a two-stroke cushion over Heath Slocum heading into Sunday, with a quartet of players three behind. On a course where going low only mattered if you went really low (the stroke average for the week was 69.115 as the course coughed up 21 rounds of 64 or lower), playing to protect the lead wasn't an option. Then there was that holding-a-lead baggage. Cink may have been owed one, but since when has the game ever paid its debts in full? There was only one thing Cink could do.

Get naked.

Off at 9:30 a.m. due to predicted storms that eventually caused a 61-minute delay at 12:57 p.m., Cink looked as if he might make it one-for-10 as his tee-to-green game worked fine in the 15- to 20-mile-per-hour winds, but his putting did not. A weak birdie attempt on No. 1 was followed by a 30-footer that ran by the hole. Cink made the comebacker but missed another makable birdie putt at the third before three-putting the fourth for bogey, a lost stroke that had five players within a single shot of him. Two of those players, Vijay Singh and Mahan, caught Cink at 14 under with birdies at the sixth and seventh, respectively. It wasn't exactly Breakfast at Wimbledon, but it was good stuff for the decent-sized gallery that had gotten up early.