Brad Faxon - HONORED…

GOLF WORLD 11/04/2005

	In ceremonies during last week’s Tour Championship at East Lake GC in Atlanta, Brad Faxon was honored as the 2005 winner of the Payne Stewart Award. The eight-time PGA Tour winner was cited for his respect for the game’s traditions and his charitable work. Faxon and Billy Andrade’s annual CVS Charity Classic has raised more than $6 million in seven years.
	Congratulations from TheGolfBallFactory.com to Brad Faxon for winning the Payne Stewart award for the year 2005. It is well deserved.

Many people here in New England have Brad Faxon tales to tell and they all seem to exemplify the appropriate spirit for the Payne Stewart award.

My story is that I recently had the opportunity to play at the TPC Boston. When we went to the warm up range , there were 3 openings on the left hand side of the range, one opening on the right hand side of the range. The opening on the right hand side of the range happened to be next to Brad Faxon and his playing partner. Through luck of the draw (and the fact that my 3 companions scrambled to the left) ,I ended up in the opening next to Brad and his partner. And although seeing that pile of brand new Titleists ProV1 golf balls, several thousand dollars worth of the best clubs money can buy and the picture perfect swing that shows why he’s so successful on the PGA Tour were all impressive, these are not the things that I will remember most about Brad Faxon at the TPC.

As he was approaching the end of his warm up, he spotted out of the corner of his eye, two young men of approximately 11 to 12 years of age, standing about 20 to 30 yards away, watching him hit. He nodded and smiled leaving them, quite honestly, more spellbound than they were beforehand. After he completed his warm-ups, he cleaned his clubs, put them in his bag, picked up his bag and immediately walked over to the young guys and said, "Hey, guys, how are you doing?" They chatted back and forth , and before you knew it, he was autographing for them everything in sight. Their hats, their shirts; he took a handful of golf balls from the basket that he had been hitting from, autographed those, gave them to the kids and literally sent these two kids off on cloud nine for many, many days to come. And I’m sure Brad Faxon PGA Golf Champion is who they’ll want to be every time they step on the golf course for years to come.

Brad did this without any pretense or thought. He did it out of just plain, genuine good spirit, or as they say, he did it in "the spirit of the game."

Once again, congratulations to Brad on his winning the 2005 Payne Stewart award.