Payne Stewart, in 1999, celebrates after winning the U.S. Open golf championship at Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, N.C. The U.S. Open returns to Pinehurst for the fourth time, June 13-16, 2024.
Associated Press

Pinehurst No. 2 in the sandhills region of North Carolina has 117 years of golf history behind it. That includes a PGA Championship not many remember, a Ryder Cup before anyone cared and one U.S. Open champion no one can forget.

No trip to Pinehurst No. 2 is complete without posing with the statue of Payne Stewart striking as famous a pose as any in U.S. Open history — left leg planted, right arm thrust forward after he holed a 15-foot par putt on the 18th hole for a one-shot victory over Phil Mickelson.

It’s hard to go to Pinehurst without thinking about Payne.

Any trip would be emotional for his children, especially the 25-year anniversary of his 1999 U.S. Open title, which came four months before Stewart, three associates and both pilots perished in a freak plane crash.

Chelsea Stewart O’Brien was 13 when her father died and now is a mother of two working in strategic partnerships for AT&T. She once wrote that milestone events were the hardest — the anniversary of his U.S. Open win, the plane crash on Oct. 25, 1999, weddings, births.

This week feels different.

“He had such a flair and a joy for life that it’s easy to celebrate him,” she said. “I think as we’ve grown, and our families have grown, we’re trying to remember and instill in our children all he stood for. Now it’s quite an honor to celebrate all he accomplished and the man he was.”

She has been back to Pinehurst, most recently when Stewart was posthumously given the Bob Jones Award. So has Aaron Stewart, who was 10 when his father died. He played Pinehurst No. 2 in the fabled North & South Amateur in 2009, even using his dad’s former caddie (Mike Hicks) and the yardage book from that 1999 U.S. Open.

“Obviously, next week being the 25th anniversary of Dad’s win at Pinehurst has special significance,” said Stewart, who has two young sons and is vice president of sports marketing for Hilton Grand Vacations. Among other things, he runs the LPGA season opener.

“Pinehurst has been different over the years for me,” he said. “There were a few summers I played in the North & South Amateur and competed on the course. Overall, Pinehurst is a special place and a special village. It just means more.

“All the stuff they’re doing to honor Dad and his win is just icing on top of a special place,” he said. “It’s going to be an emotional week, for sure.”

Their mother, Tracey, will be joining them. None of them was there in 1999 when Stewart won his third major, and by far his most famous. He had his trademark knickers and tam o’shanter cap. It was raining, and he ripped out the sleeves of his rain jacket for more freedom in his sweet, fluid swing.

Tiger Woods was charging. Mickelson was leading. Stewart, chomping away on his gum, made a 25-foot par putt on the 16th to tie for the lead, a 3-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th to take the lead and that 15-foot par putt on the 18th to win it.

His reaction — now captured by the statue — still rates among the most memorable in the U.S. Open with Tom Watson’s running toward the 17th hole at Pebble Beach when he chipped in, Hale Irwin racing around the 18th green high-fiving fans at Medinah, Woods pumping his arms after his tying birdie putt at Torrey Pines.

“Payne was one of those dramatic individuals,” longtime friend Peter Jacobsen said. “He made such an impression on the course and off the course. He had a distinctive style, he was a flamboyant dresser. He was recognizable everywhere.”

The statue is being moved for the U.S. Open, and that’s a good thing. The USGA wanted better access to it, so it will be relocated from the back of the 18th green to near the entrance, giving spectators a chance to see it and pose with it.

“They been incredible partners to our family,” Ms. Stewart O’Brien said. “It’s really neat what they’ve done. We’ve been honored to have them think so highly of our dad and have him remembered in that way.”

There are ceremonies and other functions planned early in the week — Jacobsen will be the emcee for one of them — and Monday marks the launch of a new Payne Stewart Collection clothing line. Yes, it will include a rain vest as part of his wardrobe from that Sunday in 1999.

“No scissors needed,” Aaron Stewart said.

They were producing a catalog for the clothing — knickers and the cap are among the items, but also shorts and sweaters and pants — and they needed a cover. Aaron Stewart agreed to be the model, going to Pinehurst recently to dress in slacks and an argyle sweater.

He struck a familiar pose. Very familiar.

“It was kind of eerie how much he looked like Dad in a couple of pictures,” his sister said.

“It was quite the spectacle to see,” Aaron Stewart said. “That was on a normal day at Pinehurst. People were walking by and there were a lot of eyeballs.”

Stewart died at age 42, just four months after that U.S. Open title that remains so memorable, and a month after the U.S rallied to win the Ryder Cup at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts.

That was another big moment.

“Everything he did was in a big way,” Jacobsen said.

The cup was decided and Stewart was on the verge of earning a halve against Colin Montgomerie. The heckling, already ruthless and relentless, reached a point that Stewart walked over and picked up the Scot’s marker to concede the match.

Perhaps it’s no wonder Stewart lives as large in death.

The Payne Stewart Family Foundation includes golf camps for lower income families. The PGA Tour began the Payne Stewart Award, which has become the most prestigious of all for players. Mrs. Stewart and her children attend in Atlanta each year during the Tour Championship in what always is an emotional night.

Scottie Scheffler has been the last few years. He was asked this week for the first thing to come to mind when he hears Stewart’s name.

“Either his putt at Pinehurst, and then the Payne Stewart Award is something I always try to go to at East Lake,” Scheffler said. “His legacy and seeing his family there is always really special. He did a lot for the communities that we play in across the country, and he was really an inspirational guy that I look up to as a player just because of the impact he was able to have off the golf course as well.”

FILE — Caddie Mike Hicks, left, and Aaron Stewart, son of the late Payne Stewart, are seen on the 18th green at Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, N.C., on June 29, 2009, for the North & South Amateur. Payne Stewart won the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, four months before he perished in a plane crash. Aaron Stewart will be back at Pinehurst with his sister and mother for this year’s U.S. Open to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the 1999 U.S. Open. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
AP

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Vance Honeycutt hit a home run on the game’s first pitch after ending the opener of the best-of-three series with a walk-off two-run shot, and North Carolina held off West Virginia 2-1 on Saturday night, sweeping the best-of-three Chapel Hill Super Regional and grabbing a berth in the College World Series.

North Carolina (47-14) will play in its 12th CWS looking to win it for the first time. The Tar Heels finished second in back-to-back seasons, losing both times to the Oregon State Beavers in 2006-07. North Carolina, Florida State and Virginia have clinched berths in the Series with five spots still up for grabs.

Honeycutt, who homered in the ninth inning of the Tar Heels’ 8-6 victory in the opener, homered off West Virginia starter Tyler Switalski leading off the game. Honeycutt’s home run was his school-record 26th of the season, moving him one past the single-season record he set two seasons ago. It was also the school-record 63rd of his career.

The Tar Heels scored their final run on three singles in the third. Honeycutt got it started when he bunted with two away and beat it out. Casey Cook followed with a base hit up the middle to put runners at the corners and Parks Harber plated Honeycutt with a single through the left side of the infield for what proved to be the winning run.

The Mountaineers scored their lone run in the bottom of the seventh. Reed Chumley singled with one out, took second on a two-out walk to Spencer Barnett and raced home on a Kyle West single through the left side.

West Virginia (36-24), which advanced to the first super regional in school history, loaded the bases against Tar Heels reliever Dalton Pence with two outs in the ninth, but Ben Lumsden was retired on a groundout to end the game and earn Pence his eighth save of the season.

Jason Decaro (6-1) pitched 6 1/3 innings in a start for North Carolina to get the win, allowing one run on two hits and two walks while striking out five. Pence yielded two hits and three walks in pitching the final 2 2/3 innings.

Switalski (5-3) took the loss for the Mountaineers. He gave up two runs on five hits and a walk with four strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.

The game turned out to be the last for West Virginia (36-24) head coach Randy Mazey, who announced he would step down after the season and turn the reins over to longtime associate head coach Steve Sabins. Mazey retires with a 541-424-2 record with head coaching stops at Charleston Southern (1994-96) and East Carolina (2003-05) before taking the job with the Mountaineers in 2013. Mazey won conference coach-of-the-year honors in the Big South and Conference USA before earning the award in the Big 12 in 2019 and last season.

Copyright 2024 WBTV. All rights reserved.

With five months until Election Day, North Carolina Republicans appear to have momentum, at least when it comes to how people identify themselves when they register to vote.

The North Carolina Board of Elections recently updated voter registrations for all 100 counties. The database previously had been locked from March to mid-May because the GOP had a runoff, and no new registrants were supposed to have been added.

Inside Politics has scrutinized the new numbers and how they have changed from 2020 to 2024, as well as the historical change in registration in between previous four-year election cycles.

One takeaway: It looks like the state has become more conservative since 2020.

This newsletter will not make a prediction as to whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will win North Carolina. But, if registration trends are any indication, it appears Biden could underperform in the president’s nationwide popular vote total by as much or more than he did in 2020.

(Here is what I mean: Four years ago, Biden lost North Carolina by 1.3 percentage points, even though he won the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. I consider that lagging the national average by 5.8 points.)

Let’s get to the numbers. Here is the change in registration by party from June 2020 to June 2024:

• Democrats: -126,000 (2.4 million total)
• Republicans: +156,000 (2.25 million total)
• Unaffiliated: +450,000 (2.77 million total)

At first glance, this trend looks terrible for Democrats.
But it’s not uncommon for the Democrats to have lost registered voters and still come close in presidential elections and to win Council of State races.

This is, in part, because many of the people who have left the party are probably older, conservative voters who became Democrats when they were young. They have voted for Republicans for a while. Democrats have also won over enough unaffiliated voters to make up for their losses. (And there’s plenty of debate over how independent most unaffiliated voters actually are, or whether they usually vote with one party or another.)

Now let’s go back in history. I’m going to shift the time frame from August to August, because North Carolina’s primary was held later in past elections.

Here is what the change looked like from August 2016 to August 2020:

• Democrats: -123,000 (2.54 million total)
• Republicans: +91,600 (2.11 million total)
• Unaffiliated: +408,5000 (2.35 million total)

August 2012 to August 2016:

• Democrats: -97,000 (2.66 million)
• Republicans: +26,300 (2.02 million)
• Unaffiliated: +328,000 (1.95 million)

August 2008 to August 2012:

• Democrats: +76,800 (2.76 million)
• Republicans: +56,000 (1.99 million)
• Unaffiliated: +320,000 (1.62 million)

May 2004 to August 2008:

• Democrats: +277,600 (2.68 million total)
• Republicans: +190,000 (1.94 million total)
• Unaffiliated: +387,500 (1.29 million total)

Here are a few thoughts.
First, it’s not inevitable that Democrats lose registrations. During the Obama years, voters were excited to be Democrats and registrations increased. Also, losing 126,000 registrations over the last four years — after losing 121,000 in the previous four years — is not sustainable. In one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, the state Democratic Party needs voters to like it enough that they register as Democrats.

Look at it another way: In August 2012, there were 1.99 million registered Republicans and 2.76 million Democrats in the state. Now, there are 2.25 million Republicans and 2.4 million Democrats, drawing close to parity in just a bit more than a decade.

Republicans are having a good cycle, adding 156,000 new registered voters. If you have declared yourself a Republican since 2020 after four years of Trump, it’s safe to say you are committed to the GOP. Considering Trump won North Carolina by 75,000 votes in 2020, that can be a difference maker.

Unaffiliated voters continue to be the Democratic Party’s big hope. The belief is that young voters don’t want to be identified with either party, even if they are progressive. With 450,000 new unaffiliated voters, that’s a large pool for the Democrats to draw voters from and offset GOP gains.

A county-by-county look

Here is some more interesting information about registrations:

Of the state’s 100 counties, there are nine with more registered Democrats today than four years ago: Alamance, Brunswick, Cabarrus, Chatham, Henderson, Johnston, Mitchell, Union and Wake.

(Mitchell County, in the mountains, has one more registered Democrat than it did in 2020.)

Mecklenburg County — the county with the most registered Democrats — has 2,500 fewer registered Democrats than it did in 2020. That’s a .07% drop. Mecklenburg Democrats will probably surpass their 2020 registrations by the end of summer as voter drivers ramp up.

On the other side, many counties — mostly rural ones — have seen massive declines in Democratic registrations.

Twenty-nine counties have seen their Democratic registrations fall by more than 15%. Robeson County is the largest by absolute numbers, where Democratic registration has fallen by nearly 8,600 people, or 20%. Robeson used to be one of the state’s bluest counties.

On the Republican side, 93 of 100 counties have more registered Republicans than four years ago. The seven that dropped: Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Orange, Wake and Watauga.

White and Black registrations

Now let’s look at registrations by race and ethnicity.

From June 2020 to June 2024, the number of registered voters who self-identify as Black dropped by nearly 2,700.

The number of voters who self-identify as white increased by nearly 204,000. A good chunk of those new white registrants are probably Hispanic, whose registrants increased by 79,000 over the last four years. (The registration form allows people to identify as Hispanic regardless of their race, meaning race and Hispanic ethnicity are separate, overlapping categories.)

Overall, that’s good news for Republicans, since Black voters are the most reliable Democratic group and the GOP wins a majority of the white vote.

The problem with analyzing all of this is that an increasing number of voters aren’t picking any race or ethnicity when registering to vote.

There are 38,100 multiracial voters. And nearly 920,000 voters — 12% of the voting pool — chose “undesignated” or “other.”

Democrats like to focus on the state becoming more diverse, with more voters of color.

And that’s true: In 2012, 71% of the state’s registered voters were white. That’s now fallen to 65%.

But Black voters have also seen their share shrink, as well, from 22.5% in 2012 to just under 20% today.