2 points...how far the internet has come. The school where I work had one dial-up connection coming in split into three desktop terminals. We thought it was a fast connection at the time. That was how we learned about Payne Stewart.
Youngish is always a terrible way to die, so our culture of adoration of the youthful tells us. Payne's father was not the least abrasive guy in the world, according to written reports. Payne's youthful brashness (some might label it differently) was a direct result of his father's personality and influence. As Payne married, began to raise a family, began to establish himself on tour, he grew up as many, self-centered divas do. It seems that the tour humbles some that way. He was never Saint Payne, even at this later stage in life, and would probably chuckle at those who characterize him as such.
I believe that the memory of the extended death (following the trace of the plain, the somber memorial of the piper easing into the mist, the golfers months later driving balls in the Pacific at Pebble) is what extracts these emotions from us; neither Payne nor his memory passed quickly.