Bob Estes was toying around with an old-fashioned wooden-headed driver Wednesday at the Augusta National driving range.
After he hit a couple of drives, Estes turned to his caddie, Mike Hicks.
``Do you think Payne is watching this?'' Estes asked. ``Nobody hits wood anymore. Hicksie and I got a little chuckle out of that. I bet Payne was watching.''
These two close friends of the late Payne Stewart - Estes a playing companion, Hicks a caddie - toil on together on the PGA Tour, making their fourth tournament appearance this week at the Masters Tournament, the first major championship since Stewart's death last October. Estes finished 36 holes at 1-under-par 141, five off David Duval's lead.
Hicks, a resident of Mebane, N.C., had been Stewart's caddie for years. As he was walking the course at The Champions Club in Houston for the upcoming Tour Championship last Oct. 25, he got a call from his wife. It was all over television that Stewart's plane was out of control. Hicks found a television in the clubhouse and watched the result, a crash in South Dakota.
Estes, a 34-year-old pro from Austin, Texas, had become closer to Stewart during the past year. They shared a teacher, Chuck Cook, and started playing more practice rounds with each other and spent time together off the course.
That relationship gave Estes the impetus to honor Stewart entering the first round of the Tour Championship on Oct. 28. Estes teed up the ball on his first hole, took out a putter and hit an approximate 15-to-18 foot ``drive,'' the distance of Stewart's par putt on No. 18 to win last summer's U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.
``I didn't see it. I wasn't there,'' said Hicks, who was in Orlando, Fla., preparing for Stewart's memorial service. ``I thought it was a great gesture, obviously. Playing in a $5 million tournament and he's giving the field a couple of strokes on the first hole of the tournament. That was something.''
As luck would have it, Estes was in the market for a caddie. His caddie of three years, Rich Schlaack, was leaving the caddie ranks at the end of 1999 for a job in the financial world. Estes asked Cook about Hicks' future at the end of the Tour Championship.
``I really didn't know if I wanted to caddie anymore,'' Hicks said. ``My wife and I talked about it for a while and decided this was the best thing for me.''
Hicks said he remembers Stewart often - not so much here because of Stewart's moderate success in the Masters - when he looks at his right wrist where a W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet is in place just like his former boss used to wear. Hicks started wearing it after Stewart's memorial service, where they were being handed out. Hicks estimated that more than a dozen PGA Tour players wear the bracelet now.
``In a couple of months it's going to be tough at Pebble Beach (in the U.S. Open),'' Hicks said.
Now, the duo works to get to know each other and still remember their friend. Hicks finds similarities between the short games of Stewart and Estes, rating them both in the top five on the PGA Tour.
``Bob's a more mechanical-type player; Payne was more feel,'' Hicks said. ``I wish Payne would have had a little of Bob in him, and I wish Bob could take a little of what Payne had.''
Stewart in hearts of duo