It was his 1920s style, with baggy trousers and berets in combinations that bordered on bad taste, but that somehow looked elegant on him. It was his swing, rhythmic and powerful. His infinite charisma, condensed in that famous celebration after sinking the putt that gave him victory at the 1999 US Open at Pinehurst, which presides over this article. There was something unique, unrepeatable, even in the way Payne Stewart chewed gum, who left this world in a plane crash that was 25 years old this Friday.
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Golf, death
A quarter of a century of a tragedy that shocked the world of golf like no other. It happened a few months after his celebrated snapshot, today reproduced in statue format at the entrance to Pinehurst. The Learjet 30 that was taking him from Orlando to Texas, where he was to oversee the construction of a golf course and then fly to Houston for the Tour Championship, the PGA final, depressurized sometime shortly after takeoff. According to the accident report, Stewart, then 42, Michael Kling (the pilot), Stephanie Bellegarrigue (the flight officer), Bruce Borland (a golf course architect), Robert Fraley (Payne's agent) and Van Ardan (Fraley's friend) lost consciousness before the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed in a field in South Dakota.
The incident received national coverage. Regular television programming was interrupted. Guy Yocom recounts in a Golf Digest profile that Jim Nantz, the celebrated face of golf on CBS, rushed out of a Connecticut restaurant to New York to help cover the story. Stewart left behind a wife, Tracey, and children, Aaron and Chelsea. Days later, the funeral at the First Baptist Church of Orlando was packed to the rafters. Ceremonies continued for months. At the following year's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, dozens of golfers hit balls into the ocean in remembrance. Tons of paper and dozens of hours of screen time were filled with his exploits, which include three majors (in addition to the 1999 U.S. Open, the 1991 U.S. Open and the 1989 PGA Championship), 11 PGA titles and five Ryder Cup appearances. The ever-eloquent Lee Trevino said that every star has a weak spot in the bag, but he credited Payne Stewart with the complete package.
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The tributes continue to this day. They were recurrent last June, when the US Open returned to Pinehurst and was won by Bryson DeChambeau, a player who reminds Stewart in many ways. Like Payne, he is one of those golfers with an innate ability to put asses in seats and boost television ratings. His outfits, his markedly southern style, his way of addressing the public... It was a show. But not one of those who do not take themselves seriously. Stewart was never consumed by the character. And that is why not only his eccentricities are celebrated, but also his chivalry.
There are many gestures that endorse him. When he won at Bay Hill in 1987, after going through a few years of drought in which he made several adjustments to his game and the press began to call him 'Avis', like a car rental company famous in the United States at the time for occupying second place in that market, he donated the $108,000 prize money to an Orlando hospital. His marked competitiveness, which made him one of the most proactive players with the public at the Ryder Cup, did not prevent him from intervening in a match in 1999 on behalf of the Scot Colin Montgomerie, who was being treated harshly by the American fans, to ask for them to be expelled. At the end of the duel he would concede a putt that meant Monty's victory.
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He was a colourful character, with a bow that complemented his diagnosed attention deficit, which caused sometimes annoying behaviour, as players and caddies have recounted over the years on the course. Stewart accepted it naturally and asked for forgiveness when necessary, as once when a caddy had to ask him to stop playing with coins in his pocket while his player was preparing to putt. Imperfect, but very much loved.
