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 Payne's Place
Posted: Monday June 21, 1999 02:54 PM By Alan Shipnuck, Sports Illustrated IDLING ON THE RUNWAY OF RALEIGH-DURHAM INTL. AIRPORT -- What a finish! I refer not to the 99th U.S. Open but rather my trip to the airport. After writing until 4:30 Sunday morning I crashed for three hours and then drove like Smokey (or is it the Bandit?) to catch my flight, which was on its last boarding call when I harrumphed to the gate. Talk about the thrill of victory. Now, about the Open. Good stuff, eh? I've never been much of a Payne Stewart fan, but he deserves double snaps for his clutch performance. He hit just seven greens during the wild final round but ground out par after merciless par (thanks to 12 one-putts), showing more chest-hair than any other Open champ this decade. I was standing behind the 18th green, with a perfect view of the line, when he struck the tournament's final putt. The fuzz on my arm actually stood on end before the ball was halfway to the hole. The victory completes a remarkable personal and professional rebirth for Stewart, but what interests me is how this victory affects his place in the golf pantheon. Among his fortysomething contemporaries only the two Nicks -- Faldo and Price -- can claim clearly superior careers. Stewart's third major championship places him, in my mind, ahead of Mark O'Meara , Ben Crenshaw , Curtis Strange , and Tom Kite -- none of whom have more than two majors -- and on par with Greg Norman , whose achievements are varied and impressive, not withstanding his annual psychodramas in the Grand Slam events. What of the other lads? Phil Mickelson didn't win because his putter got a little wobbly on the last three holes, but I was still impressed with his stones. He never backed down, showing more fight this week than in any other major he's ever played -- save the U.S. Amateur. He'll be back. For Tiger Woods , too, this was a moral victory. He made quantum leaps in his course management and ability to control his temperment. I think that historians (to use the word lightly) may look back on this tournament as the week when Cal Eldrick finally embraced the notion that in the majors in general and the Open in particular, par is your friend. Tiger's short game was, for the most part, fabulous, but an old bugaboo -- short putting -- killed him down the stretch. Had he not missed those five-footers on 11 and 17 he and Stewart would be on about the 13th hole of their playoff right now. Vijay Singh enhanced his reputation as one of the two or three purest ball-strikers in the game, and, combined with his PGA victory last August, he has shown that he will be a force in the majors for years to come. Tim Herron didn't have his A-game on Sunday, but you can't doubt the courage of a 250-pound man who wears pink. Lastly, there is David Duval . I don't want to say too much, because he is the focus of my story for Sports Illustrated this week, but suffice to say his self-immolation over the weekend is what I'll remember most about this tournament. Watching the collapse of the world's best player was a reminder of just how high the pucker factor is in the National Open, and underscores how sensational Stewart's performance really was. Alas, it's time for me to put my tray table in the upright position and stow my carry-ons, so I'm Audi. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll do this again soon.
Alan Shipnuck is a Sports Illustrated staff writer. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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