Florence native Stewart Cink won the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday, which lifted him to the PGA Tour Champions’ 2025 title.
Cink’s two-stroke victory at Phoenix Country Club on Sunday secured the Charles Schwab Cup, which is awarded annually to the PGA Tour Champions’ top golfer.
Cink was battling Steven Alker for both the tournament and seasons titles. Alker was seeking his third Charles Schwab Cup in four seasons.
Cink overcame Alker’s one-stroke 54-hole lead by closing with a bogey-free 4-under 67 to finish the tournament at 20-under. Alker came to the 18th hole one shot behind Cink. But he hit his second shot into the greenside lake while Cink parred the final hole.
“It feels really, really good,” Cink said. “It’s something that’s very unusual, too, because normally in golf you make goals and you just cross them off that you didn’t make them. Obviously, we want to push ourselves with goals that are lofty, but on the PGA Tour Champions, this is as lofty as it gets.
“The season-long Charles Schwab Cup race is really the biggest item on the docket, so to have put it out there and to make it my goal and to talk about it often and then to accomplish it, there would have been a chance to maybe like crumble out there. It feels great. I’m just so pleased. I’m proud of putting myself out at risk just as much as I am of accomplishing the goal.”
Cink earned a $528,000 winner’s check for taking the tournament and a $1 million bonus for capturing the season championship.
Sunday’s victory was Cink’s third tournament title of the season on the circuit for golfers at least 50 years old.
Cink became the fourth PGA Tour Champions golfer to win the season-ending tournament and the season championship in the same year. He follows Tom Watson in 2005, Tom Lehman in 2012 and Kevin Sutherland in 2017.
An alumnus of Bradshaw High School in Florence, Cink has eight victories on the PGA Tour, where he’s made 690 starts, including one this year. Cink’s victories include the 2009 Open Championship, where he defeated Tom Watson in a playoff to win the claret jug.