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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – In recognition of his character, sportsmanship and commitment to charitable giving, Justin Rose has been named the 2021 recipient of the PGA TOUR’s Payne Stewart Award presented by Southern Company. Rose will be honored on Tuesday, August 31, at the Payne Stewart Award Ceremony in conjunction with the TOUR Championship. The ceremony will be televised live on Golf Channel as part of a “Golf Central” special from 7-8 p.m. ET at the Southern Exchange in downtown Atlanta. The Payne Stewart Award is presented annually by the PGA TOUR to a professional golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s steadfast values of character, charity and sportsmanship. Stewart, an 11-time winner on the PGA TOUR and World Golf Hall of Fame member, died tragically 22 years ago during the week of the TOUR Championship in 1999. Southern Company, the “Official Energy Company of the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions,” was the TOUR Championship presenting sponsor the year of Stewart’s passing. A year later, the PGA TOUR created the Payne Stewart Award in his honor, and Southern Company has supported the annual presentation since its inception. Previous recipients have all distinguished themselves through their respect for the game, the TOUR’s tradition of charity and their ability to make a positive impact in the lives of others. “I am truly humbled and honored to be associated with the enduring legacy of Payne Stewart through this award,” Rose said. “The Payne Stewart Award has become an annual celebration of Payne’s impact on the PGA TOUR and its players. I am forever grateful to be connected to a man who was the consummate professional on and off the golf course and will cherish being a Payne Stewart Award recipient well after my playing days are over.” Rose, 41, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to Hampshire, England, when he was 5 years old. He met his wife Kate in 2000 through her work at IMG, and the couple have two children, Leo and Charlotte. They established their own Foundation in 2009, and have worked tirelessly with charities in South Africa, the United States, the Bahamas and England throughout that time. “Justin Rose embodies everything the Payne Stewart Award represents,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “Like Payne, he has been one of the premier players of his generation while using his platform to better the lives of those around him. “The inspiring progress that he and Kate have made through their family’s foundation is a terrific representation of how Payne chose to focus his efforts away from the golf course, by giving back and treating people the right way.” Rose’s Charitable Impact In addition to a sculpture by Bob Pack presented to the recipient, the Payne Stewart Award is accompanied by an annual Payne Stewart Award Grant made possible by Southern Company. The $500,000 grant supports several initiatives in Stewart’s name and is distributed as follows: $100,000 to Payne and Tracey Stewart’s primary charity, The Stewart Family Foundation; $100,000 in Stewart’s honor to Payne Stewart Memorial, located in Missouri at Kids Across America, which is affiliated with Kanakuk Kamps; and $300,000 to a charity designated by the winner. Rose has chosen to designate the Kate & Justin Rose Foundation. The mission of the Kate & Justin Rose Foundation (KJRF) is to “feed hungry tummies and curious minds” and has provided nutrition, books and educational experiences to children in Central Florida since 2009. To date, KJRF has raised more than $3 million, provided more than 500,000 hunger-free weekends, and more than 300,000 books to 29,000 children. In 2020, due to the increased need during COVID-19, KJRF agreed to partner more closely with Blessings in a Backpack and start their own Orlando chapter: Rose Blessings Orlando. With an initial gift of $1.2 million to start this chapter, and an additional gift of $1 million, RBO went within the year from feeding 1,625 children to almost 5,000 hungry children on the weekends and during the summer holidays and are on target to achieve their long-term goal of feeding all 16,000 children in need in Orlando by 2030. Overseas, in September 2019, following the devastation in the Bahamas from Hurricane Dorian, KJRF set about rebuilding the Grand Bahamas Children’s Home, which was totally devastated by Hurricane Dorian. Since then, the home has been rebuilt and refitted, and KJRF has created and funded a Mental Health Initiative and employed a full-time therapist for all 40 of the Home’s children who have already been through so much trauma in their young lives. More recently, in their home country of England, Justin and Kate stepped up to support female professional golfers, who found themselves without any playing opportunities in June 2020 following the onset of COVID-19. The Roses created the “Rose Ladies Series,” an eight-tournament swing across the South East of England to provide playing opportunities and visibility for female golfers while their tours were shut down. In 2021, the Rose Ladies Series expanded to include some of the country’s most prestigious golf courses across England and Scotland for 11 daily tournaments to coincide with gaps in the Ladies European Tour season. This is in addition to the “Justin Rose Telegraph Junior Golf Championship” that Justin has personally sponsored for the last few years with the vision of encouraging and growing golf at junior and grassroots level. There is no charge for any amateur under the age of 18 to enter and it is a tournament that has been close to Justin’s heart since he won it back in 1997. Sadly, both Justin and Kate lost a parent to cancer when they were younger, and have been fundraising for Cancer Research UK since 2003, including partnering with popstar Niall Horan every other year for a Horan & Rose fundraiser. “Those who achieve great results in life without regard for their impact on their communities are never as successful as the people who place the needs of others ahead of their own,” said Tom Fanning, Southern Company chairman, president & CEO. “Justin’s professional accomplishments are amplified and multiplied by the tireless philanthropy performed through his foundation. On behalf of the tens of thousands of Southern Company employees who, like Justin, use values like character, charity and sportsmanship each and every day to make their communities better, congratulations, Justin, on being the well-deserved recipient of the 2021 Payne Stewart Award presented by Southern Company.” A Distinguished Career The golf world was first introduced to Rose as a 17-year-old during the 1998 Open Championship, where the upstart amateur holed his third shot from 50 yards on the 72nd hole at Royal Birkdale to finish T4 in his Open debut. Rose has since built an illustrious resume during his PGA TOUR career, having collected 10 PGA TOUR titles since 2010 and the FedExCup in 2018. The week prior to lifting the FedExCup, he ascended to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in his career following a runner-up at the BMW Championship. In 2013, Rose followed in Stewart’s footsteps by becoming a U.S. Open champion with his dramatic victory at Merion Golf Club for his first major championship title. In golf’s return to the Olympic Games in 2016, he brought the gold medal home to England in what was a historic week for the game in Brazil. In addition to his PGA TOUR titles, Rose has 11 career wins on the European Tour, and has represented Team Europe five times in the Ryder Cup (2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018), earning a 13-8-2 overall record. In 2017, Rose was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for his accomplishments in the game of golf. He is the second player from England to receive the Payne Stewart Award, joining Sir Nick Faldo (2014). Rose is the 24th recipient of the Payne Stewart Award, joining a distinguished group of respected golfers including Zach Johnson, who was recognized in 2020, and the inaugural recipients Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer (2000). Other recipients include Hale Irwin (2019), Bernhard Langer (2018), Stewart Cink (2017), Jim Furyk (2016), Ernie Els (2015), Sir Nick Faldo (2014), Peter Jacobsen (2013), Steve Stricker (2012), David Toms (2011), Tom Lehman (2010), Kenny Perry (2009), Davis Love III (2008), Hal Sutton (2007), Gary Player (2006), Brad Faxon (2005), Jay Haas (2004), Tom Watson (2003), Nick Price (2002) and Ben Crenshaw (2001).

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SASKATOON, Sask. – Graham DeLaet has never been so tan. The 36-year-old Canadian saw a photo of himself the other day and couldn’t believe how much color his skin had absorbed over the last few months, an unfortunate byproduct of being sidelined due to a back injury that has kept him away from the PGA TOUR since October 2017 and spending more time recovering in his backyard pool with his young twins.  The former Presidents Cup star underwent a steam cell injection in California late last year and although the healing process was supposed to be just over a week, he continued to experience tenderness and discomfort through the early part of 2018. The procedure hasn’t worked for DeLaet, who is now looking at alternative options to aid in his recovery – and hopefully avoid surgery. “We’ve been hoping that the stem cell would work and actually regenerate the disc, but I just recently had imaging and it’s kind of gone the other way a little bit,â€� DeLaet said. “Now it’s back to the drawing board a little bit and visiting doctors and try to pinpoint what the issue is.â€� He hits balls occasionally, but even going to the grocery store and walking around for 30 minutes sends him to the couch for a rest. But DeLaet has managed to keep busy this past eight months or so, getting his pilot’s license, getting inducted into the Boise State Broncos’ Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as a collegiate golfer, and perhaps most importantly, continuing to work with his wife Ruby on their charity – the Graham and Ruby DeLaet Foundation – that helps children, and junior golfers, in his home province of Saskatchewan. DeLaet’s foundation has raised more than $1.5 million since its inception, and if you include the three charity events he hosted prior to his foundation being formed (after his breakout 2013 season where he finished eighth in the FedExCup) the figure is north of $2 million. This year’s charity, the Ronald McDonald House, was gifted nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The Ronald McDonald House provides local families with a place to stay while their child is in and out of hospitals. Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip played from the speakers of a banquet hall in downtown Saskatoon Wednesday, while cans of DeLaet’s own craft beer label, Prairie Baard, were served to a mixed crowd – women in cocktail dresses, men in jeans, and DeLaet (clean shaven, even) in a fashionable black suit with a black tie and polka-dot pocket square. Some movers-and-shakers in the province bid on experiences at TOUR events like the Safeway Open and the Waste Management Phoenix Open. The second day of the event, dubbed the ‘Graham Slam,’ took place at Willows Golf and Country Club, where DeLaet didn’t hit any balls but instead advised a group of 30-or-so kids (who are participating in Presidents Cup-style competition this weekend where golfers from the Eastern part of the country take on golfers from the West) of his usual PGA TOUR routine, and did his best to wow the kids with some trick shots. The affable DeLaet is at ease with a corporate CEO, a group of kids, or someone he passes on the street wishing him well. When asked if that attitude is a ‘Graham DeLaet’ thing or a ‘Saskatchewan’ thing, the answer is simple, he says. “It’s a prairie thing,â€� he confirms. “There’s something about being from the prairies and Saskatchewan. There’s a pride. We know we’re a quote-on-quote underdog of Canada and that’s just us, fighting the fight. It’s how it’s been my whole life. I grew up here and went to Boise State — it’s the same thing (the school), the little engine that could. “In Saskatchewan… It’s a blue-collar mentality and they’re all good people. They’re welcoming. Now it’s more urbanized but almost everyone grew up on farms. You help, you work, if your neighbor needs help, you help.â€� DeLaet notices the same faces most years at his event, and it’s easy for him to see first-hand how committed the community is to helping others. Earlier this year, he saw that even more. About an hour from Saskatoon is Humboldt, Saskatchewan, the hometown of the junior hockey team whose bus was hit by a truck driver, killing 16 people. The outpouring of support from the world-at-large was tremendous, as the GoFundMe campaign set up to help the victims was Canada’s largest. It raised $15 million after a modest goal of a few thousand dollars to help buy some coffee and cover parking costs for the victims’ parents. DeLaet says his sister lives in that area. He has been to the area many times before and driven the exact road where the crash happened, specifically en route to a golf tournament. “It’s a bus trip almost everyone growing up has had. It was just such a tragedy,â€� he says. “People here came together, but it was national and globally as well. It was pretty amazing.â€�    Although professionally this year has been a struggle for DeLaet, the Humboldt bus crash and watching his own children grow and develop has put things into perspective for him. At one point during breakfast at DeLaet’s event, his son, Roscoe, was on his lap. Drinking apple juice from a coffee cup, the two-and-a-half-year-old is sliding up and down his dad’s leg while DeLaet recalls the first time he met Tiger Woods to a crowd of about 40 people (It didn’t go well. At Aronimink Golf Club they have a saloon-style door into the bathroom in the locker room, and DeLaet said he slammed the door into Woods’ chest). To look at DeLaet interact with his kids and the crowd would be to look at someone who appears just fine. He doesn’t move with a wince, he seems nimble enough to pick up his son – and twin daughter Kayla, who isn’t far behind – and confidently walk to the buffet to grab a piece of fruit. But DeLaet admits from a health and golf standpoint this year has been frustrating. “I miss playing so much, I miss being out there with the guys and I don’t know anything other than golf. It’s all I’ve done the last 15-20 years, and you don’t realize how lucky you are until it’s swept out from under your feet,â€� he says. He says he is in “OKâ€� shape right now and could probably play, but if he did, he would be in “so much painâ€� he probably couldn’t compete on the PGA TOUR. It wears on him mentally, and he’s doing his best to get his ailing back fixed. He says getting a spinal fusion surgery, like Woods, would be “drasticâ€� at this stage. Right now he’s trying to exhaust every option without having to go under the knife again. He did a procedure about eight years ago that caused him to miss the entire 2011 season.   He knows he’s going to be back out playing, but no timeline has been set. And whether he’ll be playing at 100 percent or just put together by a few Band-Aid solutions remains to be seen. He says he doesn’t want to do that for too many years, because he wants to have a good life after golf as well. “I’m in good enough shape to live a life, but not really to be playing competitive golf,â€� he said. The silver lining of the extended time away from his golf family has been the time he’s spent with his own family, which is why the charitable efforts this year in particular have hit even closer to home.  The DeLaet’s met while at Boise State and now split time between Scottsdale, Arizona and Boise, Idaho. They just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary together with a celebration alongside family and friends to renew their vows. Although his kids would come on the road with the couple most of the time when they were travelling, after about 8 hours on the course DeLaet would usually be tired and not get the quality time he was hoping for. “I’ve had a lot of that this year though,â€� he says with a smile. Despite this year’s setback, he acknowledges he and Ruby are lucky. They’re in a position to give both money and time to a local cause in an area that celebrates athletes of all levels, but especially professionals. “I had never really met a professional athlete when I was a kid, just our local Junior A hockey team. Those guys I looked up to and it was amazing,â€� says DeLaet. “For these kids to be able to be around a PGA TOUR player and mix it up and have memories that will last a lifetime… that will be amazing.â€� As this year’s Graham Slam comes to a close, DeLaet poses for selfies with a group of the kids – that tan in full view – and bends over into an awkward position to get more of the participants in the photo. Then he stands up straight, and smiles.

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