Remembering Payne Stewart 10 years after tragedy
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
Every so often I think back to the day we met.
It was some 30 years ago on a bench outside the pro shop at Morris Williams Golf Course in Austin, Texas. He was about to win a college tournament and I was there to write about it.
He was cocky. I was amused.
Payne Stewart spent the next two decades giving me and just about everyone else in golf a hard time. And trust me. No one did it better.
He walked into a room and owned it. He'd pump up the volume and crack a joke -- usually at someone's expense -- then he'd flash a grin and wink. Sometimes that sharp tongue of his would keep right on going; other times it would turn serious as he stepped onto his soap box.
He lived his faith and did everything with passion and conviction. He inspired us and kept us honest. He was never at a loss for words -- or heart. And he could make walking out the door so darn funny you couldn't stop laughing.
We lost him 10 years ago this week -- Oct. 25 to be exact -- when the Learjet carrying the then-42-year-old Stewart and five others crashed in a field in South Dakota. The world stood still as the plane floated aimlessly across the skies for hours. And when it crashed, the nightmare became reality and our hearts shattered.
That day we all cried. For Tracey and Aaron and Chelsea. For the families of the other five passengers. And for what we, too, had lost.
Payne Stewart didn't just play golf or win major championships. He touched lives.
Whether it was blasting Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" in the hallway at the Ryder Cup hotel every morning, grabbing Phil Mickelson and screaming ''You're going to be a father'' on the 18th green at Pinehurst or simply taking time to sign one last autograph or crack one more joke, he made a difference.
He still does.
We wanted to see him captain a Ryder Cup and win another major. We hoped he'd grow old with the rest of us and bounce grandchildren on his knee. That he'd be around to make us laugh in our 50s and 60s -- mostly at all our wrinkles.
Instead, we stood at Champions Golf Club that day and tried to make sense of what our hearts couldn't comprehend. We pushed through the memorial in Orlando. And on opening day at The TOUR Championship, we listened to Tom Lehman through our tears then watched a lone bagpiper disappear into the fog.
We carried on as if in daze, but we laughed, we remembered and we began to heal.
So many times in the last decade, I've looked at a photo, walked into a locker room or onto a golf course and the memories have flooded back.
Three of us stood in the HP Byron Nelson press room this year and told Payne stories. For an hour. At least. Lamar Haynes, a teammate at Southern Methodist and longtime friend, kept us in stitches with stories we hadn't heard or had forgotten. And that we couldn't repeat.
Another group of us did the same thing at the The Woodlands last week during the Administaff Small Business Classic. We talked about Champions and where we were when we heard the news. Me? I'd just gotten out of my car in the parking lot when another reporter told me about the plane and said that maybe Stewart was on board. A few hours later, I was with David Duval and Jim Furyk on the range when maybe became fact.
I stood behind the 18th green and remembered the way he loved to go incognito in jeans and shirt. And all those nights when he'd jump on stage with Duck Soup at the Shell Houston Open's Bunker and jam on his harmonica.
When I walked back into the Oak Hill locker room a few years ago, I thought about the afternoon in 1997 when he wanted so desperately to be one of Tom Kite's picks for the Ryder Cup team, but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He was so passionate about what he could bring to the team; he swore he wasn't going to be left out again.
THE PLAYERS always reminds me of the day I was talking to Tracey and he tiptoed up behind her. Scared her to death. And I can't remember a time when Peggy Nelson and I haven't talked about him at least once.
Every year, the NBA Finals takes me back to the day I won $100 off him when the Houston Rockets swept Orlando. It's still in my wallet. The following year he won $100 off me and demanded it on the putting green -- in a voice loud enough for everyone inside and outside the ropes to hear. We all laughed.
And the post-Cup celebration in 1999 at Brookline? He was standing outside the team room, and I caught his eye and smiled. He tossed his head, winked and gave me a thumbs-up. It was the last time I saw him.
What made Payne Stewart so special is what makes him live on in our hearts and memories today. He wasn't just a three-time major champion or a guy who made you laugh at yourself. He was an inspiration -- a man who challenged himself and, in turn, everyone around him; a man who always found a way to make sure you didn't take life too seriously and that you took time to laugh. At yourself.
A man who gave back tenfold.
The PGA TOUR gives the Payne Stewart Award each year to a player who embraces and respects the game and gives back with the same enthusiasm Stewart always did. The first honorees were Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, which should tell you all you need to know.
He's smiling at all the good the annual $300,000 grant that goes with the award has done since 2000, supporting the Stewart Family Foundation, the First Tee in Missouri (Stewart's home state) and a charity of each winner's choice.
Over the next few days we'll take time to pause and remember Payne and the others we lost. We'll tell stories and watch flashbacks of his career and that fateful plane trip.
We'll laugh about watching that arrogant kid with the incredible swing grow into a husband and father. We'll remember the tournaments he lost and that last U.S. Open win at Pinehurst that was so Payne. We'll remember how everyone teased him about his trademark knickers and how so many of the players at the '99 TOUR Championship wore them in his honor. We'll smile when we remember him conceding that final putt to Colin Montgomerie at the '99 Ryder Cup.
We'll get a glimpse of how the families are dealing with their grief a decade later and how much 20-year-old Aaron, who's playing golf at SMU, resembles his dad. We'll wonder if he would have owned the Champions locker rooms, too.
But most of all we'll remember it doesn't take an anniversary to remind us there's a little bit of Payne Stewart in all of us -- in our memories; in our hearts inspiring us to live with the same passion, conviction and strength he did every day; in challenging ourselves to find the humor around every corner and take time to laugh; in remembering simply to smile and fall headfirst into life.
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