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University of North Carolina Athletics
Davis Love Remembers Payne Stewart
October 28, 1999 | Men's Golf
Oct. 28, 1999
By Doug Ferguson
Associated Press
HOUSTON -- The Tour Championship used to be the end-of-the-year event for the rich to get richer. This year, it has become a stage to honor the memory of Payne Stewart.
Davis Love III was among those wondering whether the PGA Tour should have canceled the $5 million event for the top 30 on the money list, especially since golf was the far from anyone's mind after Stewart died in a plane crash Monday.
"It's going to be weird this week," Love said. "It doesn't feel right grinding it out on the range. It doesn't feel right laughing in the fairways."
It might feel hollow to win.
So, why play?
Love found that answer Wednesday at Champions Golf Club, his first day on the course and his first chance to see the PGA Tour family face-to-face for the first time since what Arnold Palmer said was the greatest tragedy in modern-day golf.
They remembered Stewart's passion and grace, his victories and losses, his flamboyant personality and needling humor from which no one was safe.
That's when Love came to the conclusion that it was time to share the memories of the two-time U.S. Open champion with everyone else.
"We can shed a lot of light on Payne Stewart by playing," he said, glassy eyes staring off into the distance. "A lot of things are going to remind us of Payne Stewart for a long, long time."
The Tour Championship started a little early today.
The 29 players in the field, PGA Tour officials and hundreds of fans planned to gather around the first tee at 7:45 a.m. for a memorial service for Stewart. Tom Lehman will offer a prayer. A lone bagpiper was to walk down the fairway.
The first shot was scheduled to be struck at 8:39 a.m.
Stewart will be the focus from the first round through the trophy presentation.
"If we're not playing golf, I don't know how else we can honor him," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said. "There's not much of a forum to remind people about Payne. This provides us a way to tell what he was all about."
The first day features 27 holes, followed by a day off to honor Stewart, whose memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday in Orlando, Fla.
Finchem said a collection of private planes will take whoever wants to go to the service Friday morning. A larger jet has been chartered for players at the Southern Farm Bureau Classic in Mississippi to go to the services.
That tournament also is suspending play on Friday.
He said Stewart's wife, Tracey, "was very pleased that we were creating a situation where the players had an opportunity to attend the service."
It was not clear whether all 29 players from the Tour Championship would attend. Love said he has had trouble going to such services ever since his father died, and would advise players not to go if they didn't feel comfortable.
"It's good for us to hug the guys that want to be hugged and cry with the guys that want to cry," said Love, who plans to leave tonight and spent time with Mark O'Meara in Orlando. "Go ahead and get your grieving process started. I think that's the important thing."
Despite his two U.S. Opens and the PGA Championship, memories of Stewart usually start with his passion for the Ryder Cup. Love was paired with him in the first alternate-shot match on opening day, a halve against Padraig Harrington and Miguel Angel Jimenez.
"I was mystified why Ben Crenshaw would ever pair me with Payne Stewart," he said. "After four or five holes I said, 'Now I know. You want to teach me a lesson on how to take my excitement and my passion and my nervousness and my desire to win, and put it into my game.'
"I thanked Payne twice that day for what he taught me during that match," Love said. "I said, 'I'm sorry we didn't win, but it's going to help me in the future.' It did. It helped me on Sunday (a decisive victory over Jean Van de Velde). We all will remember the Ryder Cup for a lot of reasons, but now I think it will be even more special."
The Tour Championship, the final PGA Tour event of the year, has a $5 million purse, with $900,000 going to the winner. Finchem said the $80,000 for last place would be given to Stewart's family.
Along with the first-tee service at Champions, a service is scheduled tonight after the first round of the PGA Tour event in Mississippi. In Europe, players in the Volvo Masters in Spain said they would observe a moment of silence on the 18th green after Friday's round.
Love was concerned primarily with Stewart's two children, 13-year-old Chelsea and 10-year-old Aaron, and with the families of the other five victims in the crash. He remembers what it was like to lose a father in a plane crash - Davis Love Jr. was killed in a plane crash 11 years ago.
"The biggest thing I'm going to watch out for over the next few years is how we can help those children remember their father," he said. "Hopefully, we can help Aaron and Chelsea understand that eventually the memories of their father will be fun.
"He will still live on - definitely in golf, but he will live on as a great father."
