Cink-Cink partnership ends for now

JACKSON, Miss. – An inside agreement made Stewart Cink’s final round at the Sanderson Farms Championship more consequential than most anybody realized.

Cink, who won the season-opening Safeway Open with his son Reagan as his caddie two weeks ago, said Saturday the partnership would come to an end barring a miraculous round Sunday. Specifically, he said, he needed a top-five finish or Reagan was going to go back to his day job at Delta Airlines and Cink would go back to his regular caddie, Kip Henley.

“Unless I shoot the fur off this place tomorrow, I’m going back to my regular caddie,” Cink said.

He made it interesting with a 7-under 65 on Sunday but finished at 13 under for the week and in a tie for 12th. That means Henley, who was back home in Chattanooga, will rejoin Cink for next week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

“The traveling and living in a circus out here like I've done for my whole adult life is made tolerable by being a player,” said Cink, who missed a 7-foot birdie putt on No. 17 and scrambled for par at the last. “If you're playing, you're kind of the top level of the wedding cake out here.

“I just don't envy a lot of the caddies,” he continued, “and especially the ones that have families traveling out here. Media, you guys do understand that it's not easy. I wouldn't wish most of this life on any person that I love as much as I love Reagan.”

Cink laughed at the thought of Henley, his regular caddie for the last year, biting his nails as he watched on TV back in Chattanooga.

“I'm sure Kip is sweating it out because I told him T5 or higher Reagan stays,” Cink said.

Added, Reagan, “You almost said top 10, too, remember?”

Father and son had thought that the Safeway would be a one-off, but after winning felt they had to keep going. Cink and his wife Lisa took a trip to the Grand Canyon with her parents last week, and when Cink returned to action in Mississippi, he and Reagan made the top-five agreement.

Reagan, 23, is a newly minted Georgia Tech graduate (industrial engineering) who has been working in the flight operations department for Delta Airlines. He’s a scratch handicap.

“Yeah, that's the plan,” he said, when asked if he would go back to his day job. “It's been so fun out here. I really do enjoy it. But I don't know. I've got a life to go get home and live.”

Stewart joked that Reagan already had offers from other players, then quickly said that wasn’t true. No matter, Reagan sounded like he wasn’t sure if he would have accepted one, anyway.

“I've got a fiancé at home,” he said. “I like to be home. It was fun. I mean, if (Stewart) had done it today, top five, I would have been super excited about getting out for next week.”

They’ll always have the Safeway, a victory that evened the scales between Reagan and his brother Connor, who was Stewart’s partner when they won the 2013 Father/Son Challenge.

“Now they’ve both had a win with their pops,” Stewart said.