Payne Stewart's Last Major

Payne Stewart reached the 72nd hole of the 1999 US Open at Pinehurst No. 2 tied with Phil Mickelson, who was playing with a pager clipped to his bag in case his wife went into labour during the round. Stewart's approach left him a difficult, downhill fifteen-foot putt for par to win the championship outright.

He read it, struck it and watched it fall, into the fist pump and kicked-out leg that everyone can picture. Then he turned round, took Mickelson's face in both hands, and told him that fatherhood was about to change his life for the better, a moment of sportsmanship remembered as widely as the putt. He had won by a single stroke, his third major title and his last.

On 25 October 1999, a little over four months later, the private jet carrying Stewart suffered a cabin depressurisation and flew on autopilot for hours before crashing in South Dakota. There is a bronze statue of that pose beside the 18th green at Pinehurst now, and the moment carries a weight it could not have had on the day.