The Last Stand of Payne Stewart

August 16, 2019

Winning a major championship is a high mark in a professional golfer's career. Sportswriter Robbins chronicles the life of three-time winner Payne Stewart (1957-99), who won 1989 PGA Championship and 1991 and 1999 U.S. Open. In terms of biography, there isn't much new here, especially compared to Ken Abraham and Tracey Stewart's Payne Stewart: The Authorized Biography. What differentiates this work from others are Robbins's descriptions of how Stewart straddled two different eras in golf. Stewart, it is true, had style: his swing was graceful and elegant and his personality was both brash and engaging. The PGA honored Stewart with the Payne Stewart Award, which is given to a golfer who aligned character, charity, and sportsmanship. Robbins attempts to place Stewart at the nexus of change in golf. But as one era morphs into another, sports and players evolve. VERDICT Only worthwhile for those who haven't read the earlier volume by Abraham and Stewart.--Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 9, 2019
Sportswriter Robbins (Harvey Penick) delivers a riveting and heartbreaking biography of celebrated golfer Payne Stewart (1957–1999) that celebrates Stewart’s individuality (“a Jay Gatsby among the indistinguishable Tom Buchanans” of the golfing world) as well as his showmanship. Opening with the plane crash that killed Stewart just months after his legendary 1999 U.S. Open victory, Robbins focuses on the final year of Stewart’s life while expertly weaving in biographical details, from his time at Southern Methodist University through his PGA Tour success and rising popularity. Robbins provides both highly detailed and memorable accounts of Stewart’s tournaments that year, including the U.S. Open, but also explores the time as a transitional one for professional golf, in which the era of classic shotmaking gave way to the devastating power embodied by the likes of a young Tiger Woods. In his powerful closing chapters, Robbins explores the memorials and remembrances for Stewart while lamenting that Sundays without him “would never be the same.” This excellent biography is sure to please many a golf aficionado.

September 1, 2019
It's rarely a good idea to build a book around the premise that a particular season changed a sport forever, but Robbins does better than most in supporting his claim that golf changed forever in 1999, the year that Payne Stewart reinvented himself and then, tragically, died in a plane crash. There are really two stories here: first is Stewart's transformation from a selfish man and up-and-down golfer into a more subdued, kinder individual finally able to harness his talent and syrupy swing, winning the 1999 U.S. Open and providing a model of good sportsmanship during that year's contentious Ryder Cup matches; riding shotgun with Stewart's story is Robbins' account of the sea change in golf from an era of shotmakers who relied on finesse to one of slash-and-gouge power players, fueled by dramatic improvements in equipment. The Stewart story, with its tragic ending, is compelling and well told, and while the shotmaking-to-power theme falls prey to some exaggeration (Tiger Woods, symbol of the power game, is nothing if not a shotmaker), Robbins does a good job of showing how and why the change in playing style happened and what it has meant to the game.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)