What we lost when we lost Payne Stewart

Ten years ago Sunday, Payne Stewart died in a tragic plane accident. It was an unimaginable tragedy for his family and friends, one of the most vibrant personalities in the game gone in an instant. And in a way, the game of golf has never recovered.Stewart was everything you want a golfing partner to be -- funny, quick-witted, genial, and insanely talented. Along with Paul Azinger, Stuart Appleby, Lee Janzen and others, he characterized the post-Jack, pre-Tiger landscape of golf. At the time of his death, he was 42 years old, and already aware that a younger generation of power golfers -- Woods and Phil Mickelson chief among them -- were working their way onto center stage and making Stewart and his contemporaries obsolete.Nonetheless, Stewart had a vibrancy to him that no one since has matched. He combined trademark throwback outfits with a deep respect for the game, and as a result the PGA named an award in his honor, to be given to the player who best exemplifies Stewart's tradit...