Payne Stewart
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| Personal Information | |
|---|---|
| Birth | January 30, 1957 Springfield, Missouri |
| Death | October 25, 1999 (aged 42) Mina, South Dakota |
| Nationality |  United States |
| College | Southern Methodist University |
| Career | |
| Turned Professional | 1982 |
| Professional wins | 23 (PGA Tour: 11, Other: 12) |
| Major Championship results Wins: 3 |
|
| Masters | T8: 1986 |
| U.S. Open | Won 1991, 1999 |
| British Open | 2nd/T2: 1985, 1990 |
| PGA Championship | Won 1989 |
| Awards | |
| Byron Nelson Award | 1989 |
| World Golf Hall of Fame | 2001 |
William Payne Stewart (January 30, 1957 – October 25, 1999), was an American golfer who won three majors in his career, the last of which occurred only months before he died in an airplane accident at the age of 42.
Stewart was born in Springfield, Missouri, and attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta. He was always popular with fans, especially for his clothing, and was reputed to have the biggest wardrobe of all professional golfers. He was a favorite of photographers because of his tam o'shanter caps and patterned trousers, which were a combination of plus fours and knickerbockers, a throwback to the once-commonplace golfing "uniform".
Contents |
[edit] Golfing life
Stewart failed to earn a PGA Tour card at Qualifying School in his graduation year, so he played on the Asian Tour for a couple of years, winning twice. He finally earned his PGA Tour card in 1982 and won his first event on the tour at that year's Quad Cities Open. He won eleven Tour events, including the 1989 PGA Championship and the U.S. Open in 1991 and 1999. He was a two-time winner of the Hassan II Trophy in Morocco. At the time of his death he was ranked in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Rankings - he had been ranked in the top-10 for almost 250 weeks from 1986 to 1993 and again in 1999.[1] At a time of international domination of the golf scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s he was often the highest ranked American player.
Stewart represented the United States on five Ryder Cup teams (1987, 1989, 1991, 1993 and 1999) and was known for his patriotic passion for the event, once saying of his European opponents, "On paper, they should be caddying for us."[2] He was disappointed to miss out in 1995 and 1997 when he failed to qualify automatically and wasn't chosen as a captain's pick. Stewart also played for the U.S. on three World Cup teams.
[edit] Death
On October 25, 1999, a month after the American team rallied to win the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, Massachusetts, and four months after his U.S. Open victory at Pinehurst No. 2, Stewart was killed in the depressurization of a Learjet flying from Orlando to Dallas, Texas for the year-ending tournament, The Tour Championship, held at Champions Golf Club in Houston that year. The last communication received from the pilots was at 9:27 AM EDT, and the plane made a right turn at 9:30 AM EDT that was probably the result of human input. At 9:33 AM EDT the pilots did not respond to a call to change radio frequencies, and there was no further contact from the plane. The plane, apparently still on autopilot and angled off-course, was observed by Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft as it continued its flight over the southern and midwestern United States. The military pilots observed frost or condensation on the windshield (consistent with loss of cabin pressure) which obscured the cockpit, and no motion was visible through the small patch of windshield that was clear.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators concluded that the plane suffered a loss of cabin pressure and that all on board died of hypoxia, lack of oxygen. A delay of only a few seconds in donning oxygen masks, coupled with cognitive and motor skill impairment, could have been enough to result in the pilots' incapacitation. The NTSB report showed that the plane had several instances of maintenance work related to cabin pressure in the months leading up to the accident. The NTSB was unable to determine whether they stemmed from a common problem - replacements and repairs were documented, but not the pilot discrepancy reports that prompted them or the frequency of such reports. The report gently chides Sunjet Aviation for the possibility that this would have made the problem harder to identify, track, and resolve; as well as the fact that in at least one instance the plane was flown with an unauthorized maintenance deferral for cabin pressure problems.
There was some speculation that military jets were prepared to shoot down the Lear if it threatened to crash in a heavily populated area. Officials at the Pentagon strongly denied that possibility. "Shooting down the plane was never an option," Air Force spokesman Capt. Joe Della Vedova said. "I don't know where that came from."[citation needed]
Instead, according to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to the stricken Lear, beginning with an F-16 from Eglin Air Force Base, about an hour and twenty minutes (9:33 EDT to 9:52 CDT - see NTSB report on the crash) after ground controllers lost contact. The plane continued flying until it ran out of fuel and crashed into a field around Mina, a town ten miles west of Aberdeen, South Dakota after an uncontrolled descent. The five other people aboard the plane included his agents Robert Fraley and Van Ardan, and pilots Michael Kling and Stephanie Bellegarrigue, along with Bruce Borland, a highly-regarded golf architect with the Jack Nicklaus golf course design company.
At the time of his death, Stewart had won $12,673,193 in career earnings.
One year after Stewart's death, his widow Tracey and her two children, as well as the family of Stewart's agent Robert Fraley who also died on that flight, brought a lawsuit seeking $200,000,000 in damages against the Learjet's operator SunJet Aviation Inc and owner JetShares One Inc. The case was brought to trial in Federal Court in Orlando, Florida where in June 2005 jurors acquitted the defendants of responsibility for the crash. In their verdict, the jurors also found that the plane's manufacturer, Learjet, had no liability in the deaths of Stewart and Fraley due to negligence in the design or manufacture of the plane.
After his death, the stretch of Interstate 44 that passes through Springfield, Missouri was designated as the Payne Stewart Memorial Highway in his memory. He also has a street in Fullerton, CA named after him that leads into a golf course he designed in the hilly oil fields found there. There is also a street named "Payne Stewart Drive" in Surrey, BC Canada named after him that leads into the golf course designed by the great Arnold Palmer.
[edit] Professional wins (23)
[edit] PGA Tour wins (11)
- 1982 (1) Miller High Life QCO
- 1983 (1) Walt Disney World Golf Classic
- 1987 (1) Hertz Bay Hill Classic
- 1989 (2) MCI Heritage Golf Classic, PGA Championship
- 1990 (2) MCI Heritage Golf Classic, GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic
- 1991 (1) U.S. Open
- 1995 (1) Shell Houston Open
- 1999 (2) AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, U.S. Open
Major championships are shown in bold.
[edit] Other wins (12)
this list is probably incomplete
- 1981 Indian Open, Indonesia Open (Asian Tour)
- 1982 Magnolia State Classic
- 1982 Coolangatta-Tweed Heads Classic (Australia)
- 1985 Jun Classic (Japan Golf Tour, tie with Kazushige Kono and Masahiro Kuramoto)
- 1991 Heineken Dutch Open (European Tour), Skins Game
- 1992 Skins Game, Hassan II Trophy
- 1993 Skins Game, Hassan II Trophy
- 1996 Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge (with Fred Couples and Davis Love III)
[edit] Major championships
[edit] Wins (3)
| Year | Championship | Winning Score | Margin | Runner(s) Up |
| 1989 | PGA Championship | -12 (74-66-69-67=276) | 1 stroke | Andy Bean, Mike Reid, Curtis Strange |
| 1991 | U.S. Open | -6 (67-70-73-72=282) | Playoff1 | Scott Simpson |
| 1999 | U.S. Open (2) | -1 (68-69-72-70=279) | 1 stroke | Phil Mickelson |
1Defeated Scott Simpson 75-77 in a 18-hole playoff.
[edit] Results timeline
| Tournament | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | DNP | DNP | T32 | T21 | T25 | T8 | T42 | T25 | T24 |
| U.S. Open | DNP | DNP | DNP | CUT | T5 | T6 | CUT | T10 | T13 |
| The Open Championship | T58 | DNP | DNP | CUT | 2 | T35 | T4 | T7 | T8 |
| PGA Championship | DNP | CUT | CUT | CUT | T12 | T5 | T24 | T9 | 1 |
| Tournament | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | T36 | DNP | CUT | T9 | CUT | T41 | CUT | DNP | DNP | T52 |
| U.S. Open | CUT | 1 | T51 | 2 | CUT | T21 | T27 | T28 | 2 | 1 |
| The Open Championship | T2 | T32 | T34 | 12 | CUT | T11 | T45 | 59 | T44 | T30 |
| PGA Championship | T8 | T13 | T69 | T44 | T66 | T13 | T69 | T29 | CUT | T57 |
DNP = Did not play
CUT = missed the half way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10.
[edit] Trivia
Stewart appeared on episode number 169/7.18 of the hit sitcom "Home Improvement" titled "Futile Attraction", it aired on March 10, 1998 and featured Stewart as himself.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ 69 Players Who Have Reached The Top-10 In World Ranking
- ^ The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, ed. Jim Apfelbaum. 2007.
- Aircraft Accident Brief of accident number DCA00MA005 from the National Transportation Safety Board.
- Episode 7.18 - Futile Attraction
- Jurors clear Learjet in Lawsuit
[edit] External links
- A biography written when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame
- A short biography on Payne Stewart including unique photographs and documents
- Results and stats on PGA Tour's official site
- Payne Stewart at Find A Grave
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