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Wife tried to call Stewart during flight
Posted: Tuesday October 26, 1999 01:43 PM
BRISBANE, Austrlia (AP) -- American golfer Payne Stewart's Australian wife Tracey tried in vain to contact him by mobile phone during his doomed plane flight, Stewart's brother-in-law Mike Ferguson said Tuesday. Former touring pro Ferguson said his sister had followed the news on television as her husband's chartered Lear jet flew halfway across the United States with those on board apparently incapacitated by loss of pressure in the cabin. When it ran out of fuel and crashed in a South Dakota field with the loss of all six lives, the tightly-bound Australian pro tour golf community found itself in mourning for the second time in 16 months. Travel is the occupational bane of tour golfers and their families, and Stewart's death followed that of Stuart Appleby's wife Renay, killed when struck by a car outside a London train station in July of last year. Stewart, the winner of three major championships, was a frequent visitor to Australia and had close links with Australian golf since he met Tracey Ferguson when she was traveling in Asia and married her 15 years ago. Mike Ferguson heard the news from another sister in Brisbane, who had spoken to Tracey by phone at her home in Orlando, Florida. "She was saying that basically, that Payne was in this plane that was traveling out of control through the airspace in America and she was watching it on TV, which is pretty bad," Ferguson told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "She was trying to ring him on his mobile and couldn't raise him. It's just really bad for my sister to be watching it on CNN, knowing that it was her husband on board." Stewart, 42, counted many Australian players among his friends, living close to several in the Australian sporting enclave in Orlando. One of them, Robert Allenby, said they were shocked but rallying to support Tracey and children Chelsea, 13, and Aaron, 10. Only last year Tracey had to cope with the death of Renay Appleby who also lived in Orlando. "She was devastated because Renay and her were really close," Allenby said. "Both being Australian, they got on really well. She found it so difficult to come to terms with that and now a year later her husband dies." Among those lending support was Natasha Woodbridge, who flew back immediately from Germany, where her husband Todd Woodbridge was playing a tennis tournament. Stewart won one of his first pro titles in Australia, the 1982 Coolangatta-Tweed Heads Classic. A week after celebrating the victory by publicly declaring he was "going to win majors" Stewart tied for second with his childhood idol Jack Nicklaus behind Bob Shearer in the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne. The cocky, 25-year-old with the flamboyant outfits played well enough to finish third on the Australian Order of Merit behind Shearer, later making good his earlier boast by winning the U.S. Open in 1991 and this year and the U.S. PGA title in 1989. Australasian PGA Tour chairman Jack Newton on Tuesday paid tribute to him as one of the game's great characters. "From a personal perspective, Payne was a really good mate, he and his wife Tracey used to babysit my daughter," said Newton, who survived a horrific airplane mishap in 1983 but lost an arm when struck by a propeller. One of Newton's fondest memories is of Stewart stealing the show at his Queensland state charity pro-am tournament two years ago with an outrageous Forrest Gump impression. "It was a side of Payne that those who saw will always remember," said Newton. "He'll always be remembered for making golf fun and bringing a sense of enjoyment to the game with his trademark plus-fours and flamboyant style."
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