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By Stewart Cink
Special to PGATOUR.com

Editor's note: Stewart Cink is a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR who will play on his third Presidents Cup team later this month at Royal Montreal. He has served on the PGA TOUR's Player Advisory Council and is now member of the Policy Board, so he has been involved in the development of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExcup. Cink is writing a column for PGATOUR.com each week during the Playoffs and this is his third installment.

LEMONT, Ill. -- I hated to miss the cut at the Deutsche Bank Championship last week, but I've put that behind me now. This week's a new week and I have a much better attitude. I had much more fun playing today, and it showed in that 66 I shot in the first round of the BMW Championship. It's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg-kind of thing. Do you have more fun and then you play well, or do you play well and then you have more fun? Well, I just started out today feeling good and I was in a good mood all day. I think that translated into better play.

Stewart Cink felt good Thursday, and his score reflected that. (Chris Condon/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

STEWART CINK THRU 18 HOLES

Category Total Rank Eagles 0 N/A Birdies 6 T3 Pars 11 T40 Bogeys 1 T45 Double Bogeys 0 N/A Other 0 N/A Driving Accuracy 78.6% T6 Driving Distance 312.5 yds. 7 Greens in Regulation 88.9% 1 Putts per Round 28.0 T18 Putts per GIR 1.625 T8 Sand Saves 50.0% T37

• Stewart Cink's Player Page

I'm back to what I consider my normal self this week and I'm just going out there and enjoying myself. I love to play golf. Playing a course like the Dubsdread here at Cog Hill is so much fun. I put together some good holes out there, hit some good shots and I had some good chances to shoot a really low score. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about what I shot. Tomorrow, though, I think if I can hem it in a couple of places just a little bit, maybe I can move up even more.

I'm 32nd in the FedExCup rankings this week, and I know I need to move into the top 30 to have a chance to play in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. I want to qualify. I really want to qualify. But I know after playing golf out here for 11 years that the best way for me to do that is definitely not to be thinking about it every shot -- where am I on the list now, what is my projected rank, all that stuff.

You just have to do the very best you can on every shot and add them up at the end. That's the way to go. If you play well, it takes care of itself. Thinking about it is not going to help me one iota. Do I want to qualify? You bet. I don't want to miss out. At the same time, am I thinking about it much? No. I can't afford to do that. I think I would only hurt myself if I did.

I knew I was going to slip in the FedExCup rankings when I missed the cut last week. I slipped four spots -- I actually thought I would drop down more. I think I got a little bit of a break that I didn't go down to 35th or 36th. You have to put together a really, really good week to move up from there. That's just the way the things are working out. So I gave myself a shot at it. I just want to have a good tournament here this week.

Being under pressure like this helps me to focus and bear down and stay in the moment, which is what you want. I feel like it's almost harder to play under the pressure of the cut line than the pressure of winning. When you're on the cut line, you're already playing bad. Your mind is in already in a bad place. When you're in contention to win, you're already thinking well, your swing's good, everything's good. All you're doing is trying to stay out of your own way and focusing in on trying to beat everybody.

I know there's been some griping lately about the FedExCup from several players, and it doesn't make any sense to me. We all know the system's not perfect, but why complain about it? One way to make it better, to make it more accepted, is for all the players to say how much we love it. So if you're griping about it, all you're doing is digging the hole deeper.

It's kind of like going into the media room after a tournament and saying this golf course is a piece of crap, it needs to be changed. What good does that do? It does no good whatsoever. So I don't see why people want to complain about it. Let's go out and play and play as good as we can and put on a show like the body of entertainers we are, and then at the end of the season, when it's all quieted down, then we'll look back and say, maybe we change this, maybe we change that. Why do it now?

I know some players have said they were left out of the process. Well, we had player meetings about it. That's our forum and the attendance was abysmal. If you don't come and express your opinion, how are we supposed to know? And I can't tell you how many Green Sheets I had in my locker that had all this broken down, either.

But players don't read everything. They just don't. And if they don't have time to read a few pages that explains the whole FedExCup and how it works, do they really have a right to complain? No. It's your own fault if you don't know what this whole thing's about because it's been in the making for over a year. It's been in print for the entire season.

I know there will be changes, and there should be. We'll look at different things and figure out how we can tweak it and make it better. Overall, it seems like it's been received pretty well in the press and with the fans, though. I keep hearing about how it's hard to understand, but all you have to do is take a little bit of time to learn. I don't think a lot of the caddies understand it. When I hear them talk, I hear comments such as, well, Tiger doesn't even need to play the first one because he's got such a big lead.

Helloooo. We reset after the regular season. Everybody should know that but a lot of people are cynical about it and just aren't taking the time to really look at the nuts and bolts. I just think you end up looking like a buffoon at this point in time if you say, well, I didn't know that. That's like taking the final exam and saying, teacher, I don't think this was on the class syllabus.

I'm just looking forward to this week and hopefully, next week. It would be very satisfying to make the field for THE TOUR Championship. It would mean a lot, mainly because I feel I have nowhere to go but up. I feel like there's a floor here. There's all the top 30, and then me and all the people below the top 30 are in the basement.

I feel like if I move into the top 30 I have a chance to really just explode up the rankings next week with a good week. Who knows? I'm just trying to take it one round at a time here and play as good as I can for this week because the BMW Championship is a great tournament.