Reflections on the life, career, and man that was Payne Stewart.

Yesterday, Monday, October 25, 1999, Payne Stewart headed off to the PGA Championship. He never made it. He died in a plane crash that will take months to explain, and years to get over.

##A touch of class

In an era where sports figures define themselves by the height of the trash heaped around them, Payne Stewart defined himself by his faith, his work ethic, his family, and his country.

##The US Open

Two years ago, he was robbed of his second US Open victory. Lee Janzen had been given a gift by the golf gods, who had reached down from heaven and tapped his ball from the branches of a tree, a gift that netted him 2 strokes in closing the gap with Payne.

And then those same golf gods reached down and gave Payne’s ball the smallest nudge in the fairway after a perfect drive to have his ball come to rest in a divot filled with sand. It was filled with sand because the greens keepers at the Olympic Club didn’t want to wait a couple of extra days to repair any damage done by the players. So, Payne ended up with a sand shot out of a 6 inch sand trap in the middle of the fairway after a perfect drive.

He lost the tournament by one stroke to Lee, and with the class he’s known for, he just said simply that he lost because he wasn’t the best golfer this week and that Lee was. No complaints, just class.

Now, this year, he was in contention again. And the golf gods decided that it was his turn again.

He had just sunk a ridiculously difficult fifteen foot downhill putt to win the US Open and deflate the hopes of Phil Mickelson to win his first major championship. He walked over, took Phil’s face in his hands and reminded him that something much more special was going to happen to him that day: he was going to become a father for the first time.

In his moment of triumph that would silence his critics and forever cement his memory in the minds of golf fans, he took the time to comfort a fellow competitor and remind him and the rest of us of what’s really important.

##The Ryder Cup

The U.S. had just completed one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sport. Down 10 matches to 6 going into the final round of the {glossSub([[1999 Ryder Cup Thoughts]],”Ryder Cup Matches”)}, we came back to win 14 1/2 to 13 1/2. But that’s not the score that by all rights should have been recorded in the sports histories.

It should have been 15 to 13. But Payne Stewart would have none of that.

All day long as he played his match against Scotland’s Colin Montgomery he listened to the abuse heaped on Monty by the raucus fans at The Country Club in Brookline. Later he would say that he was “disgusted by some of the things” that the fans had to say, and that Colin “doesn’t deserve that kind of abuse.”

But this was the 17th hole of his match, and he was even with Colin. He had just made a spectacular sand shot that would probably ensure a halve on the hole at a minimum, probably guaranteeing him a half point in the match, improving his individual statistics for his 5 Ryder Cup appearances. But, as he would later say, his “individual statistics don’t mean crap” in this kind of event. The important this for his was that the U.S. had regained the lost cup.

So he conceded Monty’s (probably) unmakeable putt and the match so as not to put him through any more abuse or torment from the roudy crowds. The cup was decided, his match didn’t matter anymore. But the feelings of his competitor still did.

##Rename the championship

I think it would be a fitting tribute to Payne and his contributions to the class of the game if the PGA were to recognize him by renaming the Tour Championship as *The Payne Stewart Tour Championship*.