Payne Stewart Award: Focusing on family

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Aaron Stewart, son of the late Payne Stewart, watches the 2008 Ryder Cup matches with U.S. Captain Paul Azinger.

Editor's Note: The Payne Stewart Award is named for the 11-time winner on the PGA TOUR who died the week of the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola in 1999. The award was created by the PGA TOUR policy board to perpetuate Stewart's memory and is presented annually at the TOUR Championship to a player sharing Stewart's many admirable traits. Each week leading up to the announcement of this year's winner, PGATOUR.COM will select one of Stewart's qualities and highlight how those same qualities were shared by some of the previous winners of the Payne Stewart Award (click here for complete coverage).

The scene is indelibly etched in our minds -- Payne Stewart screaming after his 15-foot U.S. Open-clinching putt found the bottom of the cup on the 72nd hole of Pinehurst No. 2.

But for as cool as that moment was, it finished as distant runner-up to the best moment on the 18th green that day. Just seconds after winning his second U.S. Open by one stroke over Phil Mickelson, Stewart grabbed his playing partner by the face, looked into his eyes and exclaimed that he was about to have a child and that would be the best moment of his entire life.

Family first. If you had told Payne Stewart that story around the time he claimed his first U.S. Open in 1991, he might have brushed you aside for standing in his spotlight. But the man who won in 1999 was a far different, far deeper man. He had become a man of faith, a man who put family and his Christian beliefs before birdie putts and par saves.

His message to Mickelson, whose wife Amy would deliver their first child the next day, was heartfelt and 100 percent Payne Stewart. At 42 years old, Payne Stewart had been reborn in every way a man can be reborn and his family values had become his calling card.

"There used to be a void in my life," Stewart said after winning the '99 Open and watching the expression on his wife's face when she held his new shiny trophy. "The peace I have now is so wonderful. I don't understand how I lived so long without it."

Stewart's father, William, was a bedspring salesman from Springfield, Mo. He taught his son the game of golf and taught him how to manage his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder when most didn't know what ADHD stood for. In fact, leading up to the Open in 1999, Stewart admitted to friends on the TOUR that he had been slipping a bit in his focus. His sports therapist convinced him to go back to his focus techniques right before the Open and the results spoke volumes.

Results get you plenty of hardware and cash. But results without a strong foundation of family will get you only so far. Golf's all-time greatest champion, Jack Nicklaus, understands this like few could. The youngest of Jack's 17 grandchildren tragically died in a swimming pool drowning at the family home. Jack, then 65, was floored. He found some small solace on the golf course that next week when he played in friend Gary Player's charity event.

"I think with what's happened to us in our family, my time is going to be spent in much different ways," Nicklaus said then. "Family is the most important thing. And I think it will be the most important thing for a long time."

Jack and his family have always been connected by golf. It was his son Jackie who was on the bag for his dad during Nicklaus' historic 1986 Masters' run. "Dad picked his own clubs and we talked about yardage throughout the day. On No. 16, I remember his hitting his shot and me saying `Be right.' All is did was pick up his tee and say `It is.' "

Jackie, who at the time was playing professionally like his dad, had gotten the chance to caddy that week at Augusta National after Nicklaus' long-time caddy, Angelo Argea, retired. "First and foremost, it was father-son (bonding)," recalled Jackie, who had already caddied for Nicklaus in the other three majors. "Although the goal that week was to win at Augusta, it was always secondary to father-son. When we got there we -- here I am speaking like a real caddy, by saying we. How does it go? It's 'we' when the player and caddy win, and 'my player' when they're not winning?

"Anyway, Dad did everything he needed to do to prepare himself and concentrate on playing his best that week. And I did everything I could to allow him to do that."

Nicklaus was 46 and considered by most way past his prime contending years. In fact, earlier that season, the late Atlanta Journal-Constitution golf writer Tom McCollister wrote that the game's greatest player was "washed up."

"My mom kiddingly said, 'Did you see the article that Mr. Montgomery put on the refrigerator to needle your dad?' So I saw it early on," Jackie said. "I didn't really think anything about it. I'd heard enough commentary to know that my dad was not really expected to win, at least in the eyes of his peers and the press, but I didn't think for an instant that he couldn't win."

The outpouring of Augusta's throngs left the most lasting impression on Jackie. "Actually, that was something that my daughter Christie reflected with me. Christie caddied for her grandpa in the Par 3 Contest and when all was said and done, we were coming back home and she said to me, 'Dad, I never realized how much people appreciated Grandpa.' You think it would be a natural and obvious thing for them to observe, but Dad has never made a big deal out of it. They don't get to see their grandpa on TV because he's not playing anymore. She experienced that some on the Par 3, on a smaller scale, that I experienced in '86."

Nicklaus shared the inaugural Payne Stewart Award in 2000 with Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer for a number of reasons. Most notable among them is his love and devotion to family first.