Episode 33 is all Mike Hicks, and all one story: Payne Stewart's win at the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.
Mike caddied for Payne starting in 1987, and across three segments he takes you through it from the inside: the missed cut that set the week up, the rounds that built the finish, and the putt and fist pump that became one of golf's most recognizable images.
Here's what went down on Episode 33.
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Caddie's Corner: The Cut That Set It All Up
Last week Mike broke down the Presidents Cup. This week he goes back 27 years, and he says the road to Pinehurst really started in 1993.
At Baltusrol in '93, Payne lost to Lee Janzen. That winter he signed a five-year deal with Top Flight, and for four of those five years he struggled. In the fifth, the company finally made him a blade he could hit. At Olympic Club in '98 they led all week until the 70th hole and finished second to Janzen again. What that showed Payne, then 41, was that he could still win the big ones if he had good equipment.
So for '99 he picked Mike up at the airport and drove to Edwin Watts to pick out a bag. No club deal, no ball deal. His Mizuno 114 blades came from an old SMU roommate named Lamar, who had a brand-new set sitting in his closet, and the bag was a generic black mid-size carry bag with nothing on it.
Then the SeeMore putter. At Pebble Beach, in the fourth week of the West Coast swing, Arnie Cunningham showed Payne the putter on Wednesday morning, with the tournament starting Thursday. Payne threw it in the bag, played nine holes and never pulled it out, then went to the putting green and spent two hours with it. His back got sore, Mike told him he couldn't putt any worse, and Payne won the tournament with a putter he had never used in a round.
Then the run into Pinehurst. They missed the cut at Memphis, and Mike flew home to North Carolina and walked Pinehurst No. 2 on Saturday morning for yardages. Payne showed up that afternoon with swing coach Chuck Cook, and they walked all 18 holes chipping and putting. In his yardage book he marked red X's where he could not play from, and Mike says Payne never carried a yardage book before or after that one week.
On Sunday, in a practice round with Chuck Cook and sports psychologist Dr. Richard Coop, Dr. Coop dropped back and asked Mike what was going on. Mike's answer: Payne wasn't picking an intermediate target, a spot in front of the ball to start it over, which the great players have done since Nicklaus. On the third tee, Payne pulled his 2-iron, Dr. Coop asked, "Where's your intermediate?" and Payne got back into his routine.
Mike also caddied recently at Pinehurst No. 2 for a listener's 65th birthday, a gift from his wife after they heard the show on vacation in Tampa. The golfer shot 84, staying down the middle on every hole, and Mike's read is that when the U.S. Open comes back in 2029, the course will be harder than when Bryson won in 2024. Back on the '99 routine, Mike says it was part of Payne's pre-shot routine from 1987, two weeks after Mike took the job and Payne started working with Dick Coop, and he believes getting back to it was the factor in the win.
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Caddie's Corner: 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, Setting Up the Finish
Part two is the Thursday-and-Friday setup, and it starts with why missing the cut in Memphis was a blessing.
The Memphis tournament did not end until Monday because of rain delays. Had Payne made the cut, Mike says, they would have been stuck there until Monday night. Instead they arrived Saturday, played three practice rounds from Sunday through Tuesday, and took Wednesday off. Payne hit a bucket of balls, putted for half an hour, left the course at 11 a.m. and went to a movie with his wife, Tracy.
Mike spent that afternoon at Pinehurst No. 4 with Ben Crenshaw and two other caddies. After seven holes all three caddies were beating Crenshaw, Mike says, before he came back and dusted them. Meanwhile, the players who made the cut in Memphis kept playing right up to their Thursday tee times. "We got rest. We were well prepared," Mike says, and he thinks that was another big reason they won.
Jeff brings up the yardage book and the red areas Payne marked. Over 72 holes, Payne found one of those spots just once, on the 2nd hole on Sunday, and had to make a 6-footer for bogey.
Then Pinehurst then and now. In '99 it was Bermuda rough. Today it's waste areas, and Mike calls it a jungle: miss the fairway and you might not find your ball. On the greens, he says they roll about 10.5 on a flat putt and 12 to 13 down grain at resort speed, and the USGA can make the course as hard as it wants. Mike expects it to be quite the test in 2029, with the women playing the U.S. Women's Open the week before.
They finish with the 1999 leaderboard: David Duval (number one in the world), Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh were all right there. Mike's point is that the U.S. Open wants par to win. Payne was around par through the first two days, he thinks one shot ahead at one under, and that was exactly where you wanted to be. Then a teaser for moving day and Sunday in the final segment.
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Caddie's Corner: An Iconic Fist Pump
The final segment is moving day and Sunday. On Saturday, Payne played with David Duval, number one in the world, and shot a 68 to take a one-shot lead. Mike remembers the 7th hole: Payne hit his tee shot, walked over to the bag and pulled out an energy bar while Duval was already in his pre-shot routine. The wrapper started crackling, Duval stopped and asked, "Do you mind?" and Payne apologized. He was oblivious sometimes to what was going on around him, Mike says.
Jeff asks about 1998, when Payne had a four-shot lead going in. Mike says Payne wasn't totally there confidence-wise that week after four years of struggle, and his ball striking wasn't dialed in, but he competed hard enough to contend, and that gave him "all the confidence in the world" going into '99.
On Sunday morning, in cool, misty weather, Payne came out in a full rain jacket that was visibly bugging his swing. He asked Mike to go get a pair of scissors from the pro shop, cut off the sleeves, and that's when the sleeveless vest was invented. Mike says the sleeves are still hanging in the clubhouse at Pinehurst. He once walked past two guys looking at them and told them he was there when they were cut off.
Playing with Phil Mickelson, who was wearing a pager because his wife was expecting, Payne bogeyed 15 and lost the lead. On 16 he hit a 2-iron into a tree, and Mike walks through the chip that went about 35 feet past, Phil's flubbed chip, and a tie. Then 17: 187 yards, a 6-iron to four feet from Payne, and a 7-iron to six feet from Mickelson right behind him. Mike calls it one of the greatest shots he's ever witnessed. Payne made his, and took the lead back.
The 18th: a thinned drive, an 8-iron short of the cross bunkers from 148 yards, a 78-yard third shot that is not a full anything, and an 18-footer to win. Mike admits that over the putt he was thinking he would have to call Neal Lancaster to fill in at a skins game the next day. "Thank God he made the putt." Payne went 68, 69, 72, 70 for a 279, one under, to win.
That night, Mike says, the U.S. Open trophy spent the night at his house, and they drank "anything from crystal to moonshine." Then the legacy: Payne's leg-kick fist pump, the statue at Pinehurst, and the logo at Payne's Valley. Mike says making a putt that long to win a major in North Carolina was surreal, and he doesn't think anyone has made one longer.
Mike takes charity outings, corporate events, special occasions and speaking engagements. Details at mikehicksgolf.com.
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