Rick Dorsey is a staff writer for The Augusta Chronicle.FILE/STAFF

No sleep will be lost, says Stewart

Web posted June 22, 1998

By Rick Dorsey
Columnist

SAN FRANCISCO -- A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so is a four-shot lead on U.S. Open on Sunday.

The latter is normally successful at ousting the former.

You only can only speculate what golfing fate will now hover over Payne Stewart, a kindly contrarian felled during his 18 holes of anguish by nerves of aluminum foil. Since history serves as golf's greatest forecaddie, these type of collapses tend to weigh heavily on the psyche whether the sufferer chooses to embrace or stiffarm that legacy away.

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Bidding to become golf's least known three-time major champion, the knickerbocker broke down in mid-parade, losing his chance at temporary immortality by a single, impertinent stroke.

But rather than poor mouth The Olympic Club's Lake Course as many of his compatriots had during the four rounds of eggshell golf, Stewart swallowed his Castor Oil whole, blaming himself for collapsing in the cauldron and keeping his fingers pointed away from the tilted fairways or the USGA's fascist rules.

He had just given away the United States Open and acted as if he'd just given an incorrect guess on Final Jeopardy.

``I'll still be able to sleep tonight. When I walk out of this room, I'll still be Payne Stewart,'' he said following his final round 74, nary a tear streaking down his cheek.

Stewart's Sunday failed to continue those angelic breaks that maintained the 41-year-old's position atop the not-so star-studded Olympic Club leader-board. Matted down lies in the rough; member bounces onto greens; caroms from the Cypress trees hinted at some metaphysical intervention.

And when the baggy-pant fellow scrambled some more, saving pars at 2, 5, 6, 9 and 10, the last being a nifty up-and-down from a greenside bunker, you figured the USGA started preparing its silver trophy for a previous winner.

Clinging slightly to a two-shot lead, Stewart striped a solid 3-iron down the 12th fairway's chute, only to land in a bunker. Well, not really a bunker, but one of those hideous white land mines called sand divots.

You and me on recreation Sunday would foot wedge that shot onto a grassy knoll. But in the arcane belief of the USGA, this concocted trap should be played as is on championship Sunday and not as what it should be, ground under repair.

Stewart contemplated his club selection for such a ridiculous shot a little too long for the USGA's liking and thinned it into the front bunker. Momentum and angels no longer walked in Payne's gallery.

To top it off rules czar Tom Meeks, accompanying the final Stewart-Tom Lehman group, warned Payne of having a bad time. You'd have a bad time too if you'd just been sideswiped in a tournament that is yours for the taking by a solitary strip of sand.

One more instance of slow play, Meeks warned, and Stewart would be assessed a one-stroke penalty.

``Well, that didn't sit too well with me,'' he said.

It nagged him as he walked to 13 and received an ``Olympic lie,'' his ball nudged between gunch and gorse. It bothered him some more at 16, when a simple 7-iron shot bunkered instead.

Payne spent his week sitting on the soapbox, waxing this week about Casey Martin's case to ride, the ridiculous Friday pin position on the 18th green, the nature of golf in the life of a father.

When given the chance to go off, he blamed himself, suggesting that maturity may keep his mind in tact.

We never really heard from Arnie's Army again after his seven-shot collapse at this very course back in 1966, and Greg Norman remains toothless after he drowned at the Masters.

When will we hear from Stewart again? He still appears in working order.