watching the historic finish by Payne Stewart in 1999<\/a>, where he made a 25′ putt on the 16th hole for par, a 5′ birdie on the 17th hole, and got up-and-down from 80 yards on the 18th hole for par to defeat Phil Mickelson by one and Tiger Woods by two.<\/p>\nPayne died in a plane crash several months later. His finishing pose from that U.S. Open is memorialized by a statue of his winning first-pump. Equally as notable, however, was that amid the celebration of his 72nd-hole Father’s Day win Payne said to Phil, “You’re going to be a father, and there’s nothing greater in the world. You and Amy are going to make wonderful parents.”<\/p>\n
I was a 17-year-old son while watching that 1999 tournament. I am now a 32-year-old husband, father, son, and son-in-law. And I wholeheartedly agree with Payne’s statement. Being a father is an exceptional adventure that fills my days with more love and laughs than I could have ever imagined possible. There are nights when Lindsey and I sit at our dining room table, finishing our meal, and marvel at Harvey walking, climbing, and playing peek-a-boo with us from the living room.<\/p>\n
I realize that this is just the beginning, but I will strive to be forever humbled by my role as a husband and father, eternally grateful to have Lindsey, Harvey, Dad, and Dan in my life, and excited for the experiences ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy U.S. Open week! I’ve finished watching the flyovers of each of the 18 holes at Pinehurst #2, which look more interesting than the 2005 and 1999 U.S. Opens thanks to the recent revisions by Coore & Crenshaw. As I type, I am watching the historic finish by Payne Stewart in 1999, where he made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,982,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-golf","category-holidays","category-our-experiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4329"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4336,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions\/4336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}