“THERE’S A THEORY THAT GUYS WHO CRY DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM DON’T GO TO LIV, AND PAYNE WAS A PATRIOT WHO WELLED UP EVERY TIME.”
martinis”), not to where it was a serious problem but didn’t leave him feeling good. Socially he loved cigars, the occasional cigarette and Skoal chewing tobacco. He was talking about how he was off and on with all of it but was in the process of quitting. Moments later he spied the round outline of a tobacco tin in my front pocket. He looked around like a kid about to swipe a candy bar and whispered, “Break it out.” He loaded up, sighed with pleasure and then said, “We need to quit this s***.” Stewart that day was critical of the PGA Tour about the same issues players complain about today. He wanted bigger purses and more money for players who made the cut. He wondered aloud about transparency, finances in general and tour officials’ private jets in particular. That was 25 years ago. If Stewart were alive, would he have gone to LIV? There’s a theory that guys who cry during the national anthem don’t go to LIV, and Stewart was a patriot who welled up every time. So, no, but there’s little doubt that commissioner Jay Monahan would be getting some tough love. He talked of his moodiness, brought on by streaks of underachievement and his ongoing battle with ADD, which wasn’t diagnosed until 1995. Stewart possessed great charm but also could be snappish and cutting. Starting in 1985, when I’d hit him up for instruction tips and golf conversation, he was a blast. He’d finished third in the 1984 National Long Drive – his swing masked remarkable power – and Golf Digest presented the event, so he was deferential. Then he entered a three-years-plus period in which he won twice
but lost five tournaments in playoffs. Writers dubbed him, “Avis,” the car-rental company which touted its second-place status in the industry in an ad campaign, which irritated him to no end. “You writers have the pen, and you buy your ink by the gallon,” he groused. Another lousy streak from mid-1991 to ’99, brought on by an equipment change, made him even less fun to be around – but he got better. The ADD made him hard to play with. One former PGA Tour caddie told me of the time Stewart was jingling change in his pocket while his player was preparing to putt. He knew Stewart, knew the jingling was only an absent-minded ADD thing and walked over to him and said, “Payne, how old are you?” Stewart answered, “Thirty-four. Why?” The caddie said, “A little old to be jingling change, right?” Stewart was embarrassed and apologised. He was a great sportsman, and film exists of him charging into the gallery at the 1999 Ryder Cup to demand that fans who were abusing Colin Montgomerie be ejected. He conceded a putt
FOR COUNTRY Hoisting a magnum of champagne after the US Ryder Cup win at The Belfry outside London in 1993.
88 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024
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