At the request of 2000 Memorial
Tournament honouree Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart
already has been selected as the 2001 honouree
Nicklaus, the founder and
host of the Memorial Tournament and the designer of Muirfield Village, was announced
as this year's annual honouree last June.
However, several weeks
ago Nicklaus went before the board that selects the honouree and asked it to
reconsider and instead select Stewart, who was killed in a plane crash Oct. 25.
But the board elected to honour Nicklaus during the Memorial's 25th year and
take the unconventional step of an early announcement that Stewart would be the
2001 honouree
"I believed strongly that
this was the right thing to do and that I was in the unique position as honouree
in 2000 to enable the tournament to make this happen," Nicklaus said. "He has
been a friend for so many of us, and I would not have been able to fully enjoy
this year's honour if I did not know that Payne would also be honoured."
Stewart, the U.S. Open
champion, competed in 18 Memorial Tournaments. He appeared to be close to winning
the 1993 tournament until his close friend Paul Azinger, with whom he was paired,
holed a greenside bunker shot on the 72nd hole to win. The two friends embraced
and walked off the 18th green together.
