Stewart Cink Explains Tiger Woods Nickname For Him

Tiger Woods returned to competitive action at the Masters and understandably dominated headlines, but he did raise eyebrows when referring to eight-time PGA Tour winner, and former Open champion, Stewart Cink as 'Kitchen'.

Speaking ahead of his title defence at the RBC Heritage, Cink said: "It's been something that people called me ever since I was little. Ever since I can remember. Tiger thinks he started that, but he did not start that."

Woods spoke lovingly about the patrons at Augusta National and how his return to the tournament following the Covid-19 pandemic and his leave of absence after injury was a welcomed one: "It's inspiring," he said. "It's fun to hear the roars, to hear the hole-in-ones. I think Kitchen made one the other day. To hear that roar down there at the bottom on 16, just to hear that excitement of what this tournament brings out."

With Cink quick not to credit Tiger for the nickname, he added: "I've been referred to as 'Kitchen' ever since I was a little kid playing golf back in Florence, Alabama growing up. There was a guy named Tim Kitchens who I played in a couple partner events with up there everybody just thought that was the funniest thing that Kitchens and Cink were playing together. And I was 13, 14 years old when that happened, people been calling me that for years."

Woods is somewhat renowned for the nicknames he has assigned his fellow tour players with them most commonly ending in "ie". The 46-year old is often heard referring to Brooks Koepka as "Brooksie", Kevin Kisner as "Kizzie" and so on. 

"Tiger's always called me that," Cink explained. "It's just kind of a funny nickname, Tiger's got nicknames for everybody just like we have for him and everybody else too. It's is part of the locker room banter."

Cink made history at the Masters with a hole-in-one at the 16th hole. It was the 24th hole-in-one at No.16 in tournament history and the sixth of Cink's career. It puts the American tied eighth for the most aces on the PGA Tour since they began tracking hole data in 1983.

What's more, Cink had his son caddying for him, with Reagan a regular feature on the bag for his dad.