Payne Stewart was coming off a major disappointment when he teed off in June 1999 seeking to win the one that got away a year earlier. After a perfect drive on the back nine of the 1998 US Open, Stewart had a dreadful lie when his ball wound up in a sand-covered divot. Stewart bogeyed that hole and went on to lose to eventual champion Lee Jansen by a single stroke.

But Pinehurst would be different.
The 1999 Open was held at Pinehurst #2. Again, the dapper 42-year-old Stewart led most of the way when he as caught on the back 9 on Sunday by Phil Mickelson. It was Father’s Day and lefty was awaiting word of the birth of hist first child.
Lefty led by one with three holes to play, when Stewart's putter got hot: a 25-footer for par on 16, a kick-in birdie on 17. With Pinehurst's village chapel bells chiming and wife Tracey watching, Stewart jarred a 15-footer for par and a one-stroke win at the finishing hole. He punched the air, then embraced Mickelson, congratulating him on becoming a father. Four months later, a jet carrying Stewart crashed in South Dakota, ending prematurely a stunning PGA Tour career and a life that had been changed by maturity and his own experience of fatherhood.
"When I was a kid," Payne Stewart said after his Pinehurst triumph, "I used to pretend I was Jack Nicklaus sinking a putt to win the U.S. Open."

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