Stewart Cink continues with exceptional golf in his late 40s

Stewart Cink of Huntsville, Alabama has enjoyed quite the season on the PGA Tour. On Sunday at the RBC Heritage from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, Cink posted a four-round score of -19 to beat Emiliano Grillo of Argentina, and fellow American Harold Varner III of Akron, Ohio by four strokes.

Cink’s win at Hilton Head was his second win during the 2020-21 season, and the eighth win of his career. Cink also became the fourth golfer in PGA Tour history to win twice in the same season at the age of 47 or older. Cink’s win earlier this season came at the Safeway Open in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he beat Harry Higgs of Camden, New Jersey by two strokes.

The other three to accomplish the feat were fellow Americans Sam Snead, Julius Boros, and Kenny Perry, according to Pete Iacobelli of the Associated Press. Snead of Ashwood, Virginia, won the 1960 De Soto Open Invitational in Sarasota, Florida, and the 1960 Greater Greensboro Open at the age of 47. Remarkably, Snead won the Greater Greensboro Open eight times. When he won his eighth Greater Greensboro Open title in 1965, he set the records for the oldest golfer to win a PGA event at age 53, and the most times a golfer has won a single PGA event.

Boros won twice on the PGA Tour in 1967 at the age of 47 and again in 1968 at the age of 48. Boros’s wins in 1967 came at the Florida Citrus Open Invitational (now the Arnold Palmer Invitational), and the Buick Open Invitational. Then in 1968, Boros won the PGA Championship in San Antonio, and then the Westchester Classic. When Boros won the PGA Championship in 1968, he became the oldest golfer ever to win a major title.

Perry meanwhile won on the PGA Tour three times in 2008 at age 47, and two more times in 2009 at age 48. In 2008, he won three times in six weeks. Perry’s victories came at the Memorial Tournament, Buick Open, and John Deere Classic.  Then in 2009, he won the FBR Open in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Travelers Championship in Hartford.

With the Cink win on Sunday, he is now 44th in the world, and improved 71 spots in the Official World Golf Rankings, as he was 115th last week. Cink, who won the 2009 British Open in a playoff over Tom Watson,  also becomes only the second two-time winner on the PGA Tour this season. The other was Bryson DeChambeau of Modesto, California, who won the 2020 U.S. Open and the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

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