Six years on, Payne lingers

The fog was thick on Pinehurst No. 2 at the U.S. Open six years ago in North Carolina, and Payne Stewart was dressed for the occasion.He wor...

The fog was thick on Pinehurst No. 2 at the U.S. Open six years ago in North Carolina, and Payne Stewart was dressed for the occasion.

He wore red, white and blue, with plus-fours, a tam-o’-shanter and a rain jacket with the sleeves cut out so as not to restrict his golf swing. Stewart’s swing was one of the more envied on the PGA Tour, a slow, syrupy motion that he often made while chewing gum.

‘‘He was one of our last true swingers,’’ said Jon Brendle, one of Stewart’s closest friends and a PGA Tour tournament official, describing Stewart’s move.

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Stewart’s 1-stroke victory over Phil Mickelson on June 20, 1999, at Pinehurst No. 2 was the indelible mark on a life and career that ended at age 42, when Stewart and five others perished in the crash of a Learjet 35 that October.

Six years later, as a week of remembrance begins at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, the lives of those Stewart left behind remain in flux.

His widow, Tracey, testified last month in Orlando as part of a lawsuit seeking $200 million in damages against the Learjet company. Last Wednesday, jurors ruled that the company should not be held responsible for the accident.

Brendle, who once lived next door to the Stewart family at Isleworth Country Club in Windermere, Fla., said he continued to try to keep Stewart’s memory alive by calling directors of the tournaments that Stewart had won and asking them to honor him.

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When word broke that the airplane was in danger, it was Brendle who picked up Chelsea, then 13, and Aaron, then 10, from school. The jet had lost pressure and would soon crash into a field in a South Dakota.

‘‘I turned off my phone and my radio,’’ Brendle said last month. ‘‘I didn’t want to hear any more on the way. I just thought, ‘What will I tell the kids?’’’ As I took the kids to the car, I said, ‘Dad is in some tough luck.’’’

Brendle said he told the children that Stewart was asleep on the plane. ‘‘Aaron was like, ‘Well, let’s call Dad and wake him up’,’’ Brendle said. ‘‘I said, ‘Call him.’ I wanted to go with that flow. Let’s wake him up. He left a message, and it was pretty quiet the rest of the way.’’

When Brendle drove onto their street, television trucks had already arrived. Brendle said he took the children inside and that Tracey walked them upstairs and explained to them that the plane had crashed.

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‘‘About 20 minutes later, she let me in the room and Aaron and I just sat and cried and talked about his dad, how we had to go on and how we have to keep talking about his dad,’’ Brendle said. ‘‘It’s hard for me. Aaron doesn’t remember that much. I try to tell him how good I think his dad was.’’

(The New York Times)