It’s a Major Loss for Golf

Payne Stewart was one of the intriguing and colorful figures on the PGA Tour and in golf itself, neither of which is known for producing much of either.

For instance, the tour’s favorite color is beige. And golf, well, just remember that big controversies in golf are stripes on your shirt and the shape of the grooves on your five-iron.

The thing about Stewart was that he could walk both ways. His clothes made him look like a pinup for a 1920s golf calendar and his game was good enough for him to win twice against the best titanium-lugging, cavity-backed, graphite-shafted players that modern golf could throw out there in 1999.

He sure figured out a way to get recognized.

Even casual sports fans with no clue that Stewart had won three major golf championships could pick him out of the crowd because of his clothes--colorfully sappy knickers, the long socks and buckled shoes, the cap.

You would have to say he looked like either the guy who parked your car at the country club or the reincarnation of Gene Sarazen.

Stewart’s clothes were as outdated as he was contemporary.

At 42 and in his 19th season on the professional golf tour, Stewart was having the best professional year of his life, which tragically ended when he died Monday in a private plane crash in South Dakota.

Only four months ago, on the fabled Pinehurst No. 2 course laid out in the sandy waste of North Carolina, Stewart made golf history when he won his second U.S. Open and third major title by sending a slithering 20-foot putt into the bottom of the cup on the 72nd and last hole on the last round on the last day.

It was the longest putt to win the U.S. Open, a tournament that has been around since 1895.

It’s a shame Stewart isn’t around to see if he could do it again next year at Pebble Beach, what amounts to a traditionalists’ boutique where knickers are never out of style.

Not only could Stewart play the game, he could talk it too. You would have to color Stewart as outspoken. He would be reminded occasionally that being opinionated sometimes got him into trouble.

It happened again last week when he squinted, bared his teeth and used a mock Chinese accent in a television interview. He apologized after somebody told him it might have offended people.

Often, even innocent questions rankled him. That happened one year at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic when Stewart was asked how it felt to have Fred Couples challenging for the lead.

Stewart icily said he wasn’t sure how closely the reporter followed golf, but Fred Couples didn’t win every week.

Actually, this was sort of mild Payne Stewart. When he was younger, he popped off so many times, he didn’t need a cap, he needed a cork. This was during the time he was Pain Stewart, sort of an egocentric, snippy brat. Of course, this was also during the time he won nine times, including the 1989 PGA Championship and the 1991 U.S. Open.

Talking about himself, Stewart used to refer to himself in the third person, as if he were commenting on someone else--and probably wished he were.

But Stewart changed when he had a spiritual awakening, rededicated himself to his family and put golf in a different priority. It would be his job, not his life.

He wore a woven bracelet with the letters WWJD, given to him by his 10-year-old son, Aaron. The letters stand for “What Would Jesus Do?”

Soon after he’d won at Pebble Beach in February, Stewart said he couldn’t wait to get on a plane and head back to Orlando so he could drive Aaron and 13-year-old Chelsea to school the next day.

He talked eagerly and openly about his hope of making the Ryder Cup team so he could kick some players in the rear and get them fired up.

Ben Crenshaw, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, learned about Stewart’s death and wept unashamedly. Stewart was a vocal leader who came up with the idea of putting a pingpong table in the team room at the Ryder Cup to promote goodwill and togetherness.

Crenshaw got Stewart’s pingpong table, all right, and the darned thing must have worked, because the U.S. team won. Stewart wasn’t much of a factor on the course, but he sure left his mark off of it.

Stewart left a lot for us to remember him by. When he won the 1987 Bay Hill Invitational, he donated his entire check to the Florida Hospital Circle of Friends for use of families of cancer patients in memory of his father, Bill.

Giving became a habit for Stewart. He made friends with a terminally ill teenager from Ohio through the Make-A-Wish Foundation at the 1993 Skins Game.

The teen’s wish was to accompany Stewart at the Skins Game and Stewart quickly agreed. Stewart suited up 17-year-old Joel Broering in plus-fours and asked him to walk with him on the course at Bighorn Golf Club in the Palm Springs area.

When Broering died three weeks later, Stewart’s Skins Game trophy was put in the casket.

And last week, Stewart and his wife, Tracey, donated $500,000 to the First Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the First Baptist Church of Orlando, Fla., where the Stewarts lived.

Chelsea is a seventh grader and the first baseman on the church school’s varsity softball team.

Aaron attends the same school, where parents routinely pick up their kids in the afternoon for the ride home. Sadly, there is one fewer driver in the carpool.