Sunday Herald, The: Stewart a hard act to followAlan Campbell's US OPEN DIARY

IT has been difficult to escape memories of the late Payne Stewart here at Pinehurst, and not only because of the dramatic bronze sculpture of him which leaps out at spectators just behind the 18th green.

A memorial service was also held on Tuesday afternoon for the man who won the US Open on the only occasion it was previously held in this North Carolina resort.

When he won in 1999, Stewart attributed his victory to the Lord. But behind this born-again Christian mumbo-jumbo lay a man who wasn't averse to straying from the straight and narrow. Once, on a flight back from Japan, Stewart and 2002 Ryder Cup captain Curtis Strange ended up wrestling on the floor of their first class compartment. They, plus some other players and caddies, had been playing blackjack and drinking the plane dry when Stewart's renowned flair for needling people got the better of Strange. After some unseemly WWF grappling the pair were separated.

The year before he died there was another drinking episode, this time in Ireland. Stewart, who liked to be the life and soul of a party, started playing the piano and then began to sing.

Rest assured, it wasn't a hymn. Then he went behind the bar and served drinks for 20 minutes. It was only when the bloke in charge realised that he wasn't charging anybody that the celebrity barman was asked to desist.

Basically with Payne Stewart, what you saw was what you got. But although he could rub people up the wrong way, he also had a strong streak of decency running through him. He didn't, for example, like Augusta National, venue of the US Masters, because of what he perceived as its elitism and snobbishness.

His shocking death in October 1999, just four months after he won his second US Open, has left a huge void in a sport sadly bereft of true characters.

AS they say in these parts, you wait decades for a US Open to come along and then two arrive together. For many, many years, the perceived wisdom was that the weather would be too hot in the summer to stage the championship in the South - but after being given it in 1999, Pinehurst was again allocated the event this year.

That six-year span is, in United States Golf Association terms, a very short time indeed. Not since 1940 and 1946 has a venue staged the US Open one after the other so quickly.

When, for most of last week, the temperature sweltered in the high 90s, the reservations about the weather proved accurate - but a great sweetener for the return to Pinehurst was the dollars-11.75 million which ClubCorp, the owners of this North Carolina resort, are reputed to have paid the USGA for the right to be the 2005 hosts. In return, ClubCorp, which saved Pinehurst from bankruptcy when they bought it in 1984, will receive a share of the huge revenue streams from this championship.

There's money to be made from this golf lark.

PERHAPS it wasn't just the extreme summer temperatures which deterred the USGA from staging the championship in the South for so long.

On the same day that Michael Jackson was given the all-clear to resume sleeping with children, the US Senate formally apologised for never having outlawed lynching. Between 1882 and 1968 more than 4,700 people, most of them African-Americans, were murdered in mob killings. The majority occurred in the Southern states.

ON a much lighter note, Freddie Couples is back. The ever- popular 45year-old hasn't had his back troubles to seek, but only narrowly failed to land his 16th PGA Tour victory at the Memorial tournament a fortnight ago.

As usual, women of a certain age follow him swooningly in the galleries, but here at Pinehurst there was a particularly eye- pleasing gaggle of younger gals dressed in matching black polo- shirts and shorts. The coup-degrace was Freddie's Boom Boom signature note on the front of their tops.