When I approached Stewart Cink after his round at the Transitions Championship and asked him about the Twitter incident, he looked genuinely confused. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” said Cink. “What did it say? It could have been hacked because I didn’t send any (tweets) by accident.”
As I tried to look it up on my phone, he leaned in to check it out for himself, saying, “You’ve got me interested now.”
I paraphrased the mistweet, “UK took it to WVu today, huggy bear is a drunk!! You see elin’s mansion for 10 million? Wow, expensive tale tiger got!”
Cink, shaking his head, said, “Someone’s hacked me. I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for letting me know.”
Here now, are his tweets after being informed.
Unless Cink has a remarkable poker face, his account was hacked. After all, it was rather late (1am-ish) when the tweets were sent.
“All I (tweeted) was I didn’t know any songs and I think I may have put a picture of Kenny Chesney coming in,” said Cink, who took his son, a fan, to the concert.
He did have a good time at the concert, though. And actually, he did know one song — “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem.”
Laughing, Cink said, “I’d heard that one before, but that was the only one.”
*Update, 3/21/11, 11:30am: Many are calling into question the validity of Cink saying his account was hacked. I believe him. I was the only reporter present when I asked him about the infamous tweet and you had to be there to understand that he really looked like he had no idea what I was talking about. He thought I just wanted to chat about the Kenny Chesney concert. He’s either got an amazing poker face or he’s telling the truth — I’ll go with the latter.
A Twitter follower sent me a screenshot of the original tweet. Here it is:
You see it’s sent from “Mobile Web”? Which is unlike the thousands of his other tweets which are sent from “Echofon.”
The hacker left the tweets up for about 20 minutes before deleting them, just enough time for people to RT them and the damage was done.
Also, “tail” was spelled wrong — the hacker wrote “tale.” I think it’s safe to assume that Cink would have used the correct “tail.”
He was with his son on Saturday night, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t throwing back beers at the concert. I kicked off the conversation by joking, “So, did you have a little too much fun at the Kenny Chesney concert last night?” Laughing, he said, “No, but it was fun.”
Maybe I’m just naive, but I’m willing to give Stewie the benefit of the doubt.
March 21st, 2011 on 3:35 am
Cink is full of it. His story doesn’t add up and I’m surprised you’re buying it, Wei.
Not to make a huge deal out of this minor issue, but the journalist in me can’t let the obvious loose ends slide. I also happened to be live on Twitter while Cink shot off the tweet in question. So let’s look at this:
So a hacker broke into Cink’s account and sent the infamous tweet? Then the hacker immediately deleted that tweet and apologized (two apologies, I believe) for it and said it was meant to be a text? Then the hacker deleted all the apology tweets too, all within several minutes of each other, before going silent for the night?
So the hacker was pretending to not only be Cink sending the infamous tweet, but also immediately pretended to be Cink apologizing for it? And why would the hacker break into his account to send the tweet just to apologize for it and delete all the tweets in question minutes later?
He also appears to have sent out six tweets Sunday morning before you “informed” him. You’re telling me he didn’t see the dozens, if not hundreds/thousands, of tweets sent to him regarding the infamous tweet? Come on, Wei.
March 21st, 2011 on 7:18 am
I’ll back Chad up: Cink’s ‘hacker’ did indeed send an apology tweet claiming that he had meant to send a text message.
March 21st, 2011 on 9:51 am
lol he is such a peice of $h1t, loozer. Hey, u interested in the latest N1ke apparel check http://www.counterfeitcrap.con
March 21st, 2011 on 9:52 am
Oh my goodness, I’m shocked, just shocked at that earlier comment under my name, someone must have hacked my account! Those hackers are everywhere!
March 21st, 2011 on 11:20 am
I didn’t believe Cink at all until it was mentioned that the tweets were sent from a different device. I was still skeptical and asked why would a hacker get remorseful and apologize. The extremely Twitter savvy person I was debating with said that is the only way to make the tweets look legitimate. It is clear to anyone that knows/follows Cink that he would delete the tweets right away. The hacker did his “job” by leaving it up just long enough to get it retweeted and then take it down to look like a real mistake from Cink.
March 21st, 2011 on 11:38 am
Just updated the post to back up why I think Stewie is telling the truth.
March 21st, 2011 on 5:59 pm
I completely understand what Kr1 is saying and I definitely took that into consideration. But it doesn’t explain how Cink could have been on Twitter and sent out six tweets before Wei “informed” him and not seen all the replies to him about the tweet in question.
“Also, “tail” was spelled wrong — the hacker wrote “tale.” I think it’s safe to assume that Cink would have used the correct “tail.” ”
It’s never safe to assume any of these guys have an above-average grasp on grammar. I mean…you do follow them, right?
March 21st, 2011 on 6:15 pm
Why would Stewie hack himself? PGA Tour golfers don’t have scads of time to play hack the world now do they? Unless they are in Top 135 (135 or is it still 130 or 140) Tuesdays are qualifying day with Wednsday for practice and Th to Sunday for the torurney. Some players arrive and use Tuesday for an extra practice day. Travel and the like does not leave much time to play with Twitter and FaceBook so yeah I agree that Cink did not hack his own Tweets! A lot of times FB and Twitter will accidentally double post or even triple post entries. I use FB more than Twitter because of the character limit at Twitter. I much prefer FB because video and pix post/share easier than at Twitter which is usually over capacity when i try to share there. Maybe he hit his apology twice without knowing it. Heavens knows we’ve all done that I’m sure! Let’s give SC the benefit of the doubt and say he didn’t hack himself. Good luck to him and all the rest of the players at the Masters in April. My fave is The Big Easy from taht other downunder country- RSA- Jack/keimanzero-Brookhaven PA-USA
March 21st, 2011 on 10:16 pm
It’s too bad he is saying it was a hack, I was gonna give him props for having the stones to put in writing what I’m sure a lot of his fellow pros are thinking in regards to Tiger.
March 22nd, 2011 on 1:51 pm
It’s possible to send tweets without reading them, therefore it’s possible that Stewart Cink sent tweets on Sunday morning without reading the responses. After all, he had a golf match to play.