"Lord, I don't ask that I should win, but please, please don't let me finish behind Akabusi."
Stewart Cink
This week the Open Championship is taking place at the home of golf, St Andrews. The first ever Open Championship took place in 1860, with players competing over three rounds of the 12 hole Prestwick Golf Club. The prize was a handsome belt of red morocco leather, richly ornamented with heavy silver plates. There was, of course, no prize money.The 2009 Open was one of the most exciting opens in years with 59 year old Tom Watson being pipped at the post American Stewart Cink.
Golf has always been part of his life: “My parents used to take me to the golf club because it was easier than getting a babysitter and I would play on the cart. People ask me when I started playing golf. The answer is I don't know because it was earlier than I can remember. I used to set myself targets - break 60, 50, 40 for 9 holes.
“My first breakthrough came in a junior tournament in Alabama where I lived when I was 8. There were only two players in the under eleven section and I won. The following year I lost to Brian Gay – now a US tour player - who even got a hole in one. So by the age of 9, I had learnt that it was more fun to win than to lose”.
He got a scholarship to Georgia Tech, which gave him the chance to practise a lot and develop his game. But a chance encounter was to change his life. “The golf team had lunch together each day. Once a player brought a friend who was a church minister. The minister ask me if I die that day, would I go to heaven or hell. I replied ‘heaven - because I was a good person, I did not cheat on the golf course, and I would help an old lady across the road’. I was embarrassed by the question because guys don't talk about personal things like that.
“It was seven years before I learned the right answer to that question - that I could only go to heaven because Jesus died on a cross to take care of my sins. There is no one who is perfect and the basis of my life is believing that Jesus died for my sins. I don't believe in Jesus in order to get more birdies but it gives me and great sense of peace. Having Christ in my life makes the valleys less deep and the peaks less steep.
“Winning tournaments, playing Ryder Cup are great but only last a week - in Jesus I have something that will last forever”.
Stewart can also see the funny side of his Christian faith. One day he was playing a par 3 and his playing partner and he hit identical shots past the pin - his partner’s ball stuck in the fringe, Stewart’s spun back beside the hole. As they walked off, he heard the other player say: “that was Christian bounce - we don't get any of them!”