In the months leading to the October publication of my second non-fiction golf book, "The Last Stand of Payne Stewart," I'll post a few reflections about the project, from the idea to the reporting to the writing to the travels I took between early 2017 and early 2019. Till then, here's a lovely picture I made last summer from the fairway of No. 8 at Osage National Golf Club, one of my favorite courses at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where my family (on the Robbins side) has had a cabin on the shore for more than half a century. Osage National is about an hour and a half from Springfield, Payne's childhood home. Moreover, Payne played this very course on its opening day, alongside Tom Watson, if memory serves. To think: He once took in this exact view. I hope it was a day just as fine as this one was for me.
