Payne Stewart Award hits home for Brandt Snedeker

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Brandt Snedeker never met Payne Stewart, but he grew up a fan of the late multiple major champion who left a mark on the golf world for his charm, fire and slightly rebellious fashion sense.

Snedeker was also born to be a Stewart fan, literally, with roots in Stewart’s hometown of Springfield, Missouri. His dad grew up there, his mom attended Drury College there and he still has family in the Ozarks. He learned the game as a youth from his grandmother Valorie Shipp Hayes, who developed an interest in the game through a friendship with Stewart’s father Bill. “I probably wouldn’t have (played golf otherwise),” Snedeker said.

Planted decades ago, the seed has continued to bear fruit. Snedeker was announced Tuesday as this year’s recipient of the Payne Stewart Award, which recognizes a player for character, sportsmanship and commitment to charitable giving. He will officially receive the award at the TOUR Championship.

“The biggest thing I loved about Payne was you saw how he was feeling, you saw him engage, interact with the crowd,” Snedeker said. “You saw how he loved the game of golf, how passionate he was about it. And also you saw what he was as a family man later on in his life, later in his career, how much that meant to him.

“Having this kind of come full circle is really special and something I'm so proud of and kind of humbled by it, to say the least.”

Snedeker, 43, reflected on the honor ahead of the Wyndham Championship, where he’s a two-time winner (2007 and 2018) and looks to find some form ahead of the FedExCup Fall (he’s outside the top 200 on the season-long standings and cannot qualify for the Playoffs). Snedeker has thrived in Greensboro, including an opening-round 59 en route to his 2018 title, but Tuesday wasn’t about his efforts on the course. It was a chance to reflect on his origins in the game and celebrate a career that has led to the Payne Stewart Award.

The Vanderbilt alum spent three years on the Korn Ferry Tour, earning his TOUR card as a two-time winner in 2006. He has been a TOUR fixture for nearly two decades, with 433 starts to his credit including nine wins and the 2012 FedExCup crown. He founded the Sneds Tour, providing affordable competitive golf to more than 2,000 aspiring golfers in his home state of Tennessee, and his Snedeker Foundation supports various athletic endeavors across the Volunteer State.

The road traces back to Stewart’s hometown.

“I was 6 years old when I got my first set of clubs. (My grandma) gave them to me,” Snedeker said Tuesday. “My dad had played a little bit of golf, but not a ton. She was just obsessed. She didn't play, but she was obsessed.

“So I stayed with her one summer in West Plains, Missouri, a little town outside Springfield, and she got me playing. I came home and just fell in love with it and made my dad take me on the weekends and kind of grew from there. Just through that one little act of giving me a set of golf clubs and that one interaction she had with Payne's dad kind of started this whole process. It's kind of cool now to see it 37 years later to be sitting here in front of you with that award means tons to me.”

Snedeker is waiting for results – he has made just five of 21 cuts this season and will have some heavy lifting in the FedExCup Fall to earn 2025 exempt status. He’s not going to throw in the towel, though, drawing motivation from the game’s current crop of stars. He remembers the first time he played with Xander Schauffele, thinking “This sounds different, the way he hits a golf ball,” and seeing Scottie Scheffler finish runner-up in a playoff at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, the Korn Ferry Tour’s Nashville event. (In his next start, Scheffler earned his first TOUR-sanctioned title at the NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank.)

“I remember seeing, watching Scottie play, going golly, this guy's different, he hits it high and far, not scared of anything,” Snedeker said Tuesday. “I’ve seen all these guys grow up and come out here on TOUR … I think it’s just a great time for golf in America right now, I really do.

“I don’t like losing. I don’t like losing to these guys. They play differently than I do; doesn’t mean I can’t play with ‘em.”

Snedeker also draws inspiration from the late Stewart, who fought through a mid-career lull to perhaps peak in his early 40s, winning the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 with a dramatic birdie on the closing hole and an outstretched fist to the sky that was commemorated with a statue on the Pinehurst grounds. Sometimes good golf isn’t that far away, with last year’s Wyndham Championship winner serving as proof positive, as Snedeker also mentioned Tuesday.

“You saw it last year with Lucas Glover struggling and then all of a sudden … he played great and won, won here,” Snedeker said. “It can just happen that quick, so it's why I love the game. You're never out of it, you're never as bad as you think you are, you're never as good as you think you are.

“It's been a long year, but I practice hard, I'm ready to go and waiting for that kind of good roll to come, and when it does, I'll be ready to take advantage of it.”

Snedeker intends to author more signature moments inside the ropes, but now he savors the chance to join a list that includes Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Byron Nelson and Tom Watson, of pros who have made a lasting impact on the game and thus honored with the award that remembers one of the game’s more memorable characters. Snedeker has attended several dinners that honor the Payne Stewart Award, and now he’ll be on the other side.

It’s an honor he’ll cherish forever.

“I've gotten to do so many cool things in the game of golf and meet all my icons pretty much, and he's the one I probably would have loved to have met the most,” Snedeker said. “That's one thing I never got to do, but super special to have my name on his trophy.”