Fond memories of Payne Stewart

By Tim Wood

It was one of those strange moments that all of us have experienced too many times.

Sportswriter Justin Lamb asked me Monday afternoon if I had heard about Payne Stewart.

What about Payne Stewart?

Justin told me Stewart had been killed in a plane crash. The CNN reports said something about an aircraft losing contact and going out of control.

I had a small ink to Payne Stewart. I've played a lot of golf, although none recently. I've cheered Stewart from in front of my television and commiserated with him when he lost the big tournaments.

Stewart hailed from the southwest Missouri city of Springfield, just a one-hour drive from my hometown. His multi-sport exploits were well chronicled by Springfield's newspaper. Naturally, his golfing accomplishments topped the rest. As he went to Southern Methodist University and then to the pro tour, I tried to keep up with his golfing career.

When the PGA Championship came to Tulsa, Okla., in 1982 and I was working for a nearby newspaper, it was natural for me to try to interview him.

At the time, his only tour victory was at the Quad Cities Open, a tournament not exactly on a par with the Masters. But Stewart would later say it meant more to him than even his U.S. Open titles.

Back then, Stewart was what we could call a little "flaky." He already was wearing the knickers that distinguished him from the other golfers. He was one of a group of young pro golfers who had posed in their underwear for a magazine picture. The picture was intended to parody a photo of a scantily-clad female golfer that had appeared in another publication.

He was trying acupuncture treatment to help his golf game. Taped to his ear lobes were several small needles. He insisted that they were helping his golf game.

We did the interview in the club house and were joined by Stewart's father, Bill, a two-time Missouri Amateur champion. A salesman by profession, he liked to dress in flashy outfits so his prospective customers would remember him.

During the interview, his pride in his son was obvious. At that time, he was suffering from the cancer that would eventually kill him. But you couldn't tell it - he was beaming throughout the interview.

I wrote a story about Stewart, using the phrase "knickers and needles." If I've made one accurate prediction in years of being in newspapers, it was my forecast in that article that he would be a great golfer.

He wasn't a great golfer that week. I followed him around for a few holes. His wife and father were the only members of Payne's "Army" that day, and he wasn't a factor in the tournament.

But he went on to great success, winning a PGA title and two U.S. Open championships. He almost became better known for his near-misses than for his victories. The needles disappeared, but the knickers became his trademark.

He took home the U.S. Open title this past summer, making an incredible clutch putt on the 18th hole to win it. It was the longest putt ever to win the Open on the final hole. It was a putt he had dreamed about countless times as a child, he said.

"I'm proud of the fact that my faith in God is so much stronger and I'm so much more at peace with myself than I've ever been in my life," Stewart said after the win, according to the Associated Press.

When I hacked around southwest Missouri golf courses as a kid, I imagined a few such putts, but they were just fantasies. When Payne Stewart made his dream become a reality, he did it for a lot of other Missouri kids who dreamed.

And that Quad Cities Open title? Stewart said it was the most important because his father was there to see it. If there's any consolation in Payne Stewart's untimely death, it is that he and his father are together again.

First published in the Columbia Daily Herald Oct. 26, 1999

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