Garcia - recent winner on US tour (Getty Images)

A record 24 Europeans are taking part in the US Open this coming week - all hoping to be the first to win a major since Paul Lawrie at the 1999 Open and all wishing that the number was 25.

Darren Clarke's absence from a major championship for the first time since 1998 is as a result of his wife Heather's second battle with cancer.

"There are more important issues to be dealt with at the moment than swinging a golf club," said the Ryder Cup star, a father of two small boys.

Clarke hopes the big event next week is Heather returning home. Taken into hospital two weeks ago she recovered sufficiently to be taken out of intensive care last Monday.

When the European contingent gather at Pinehurst there will be another reminder that golf is just a game and however angry they feel at missing a putt it needs to be put into perspective.

On Tuesday afternoon at 5pm a ceremony will be held on the 18th green in memory of Payne Stewart, winner on the course six years ago and killed in an air tragedy a mere four months later.

The 1999 championship will always be remembered for one image - Stewart's look of complete elation when his 15-foot par putt on the final green dropped into the hole for a one-stroke win over Phil Mickelson.

A year earlier he had lost from four ahead and although he had won the title in 1991 and the US PGA two years before that, this was the moment he had lived for.

"All I wanted to do was give myself a chance," he said, choking back the tears. "I never gave up. I got the job done."

He had become the first player in the 99-year history of the US Open to win by making a substantial putt on the 72nd hole.

"When I looked up, it was about two feet away from the hole and breaking right into the centre of the cup. I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe I had accomplished my dream."

Mickelson, waiting then for a call to tell him he was about to become a father for the first time, had to wait another five years to become a major winner.

But even in his moment of triumph Stewart had the presence to tell the left-hander: "Good luck with the baby. There's nothing like being a father."

Mickelson commented: "I think it would have made for a cool story for my daughter to read about as she got older, but this is still something special." And made even more special when Stewart's two children were left without a father that October.

They will grow up with the marvellous pictures of Stewart, dressed as he nearly always was in tournament play in plus fours, thrusting his fist in the air, turning to caddie Mike Hicks and shouting in disbelief, perhaps exorcising the demons of US Opens past.

He had had at least a share of the lead 11 times after any of the first three rounds, more than any player in history.

Stewart will be remembered for far more than just his wins and his near-misses, though.

At the 1999 Ryder Cup, a month before the private jet accident that cost him his life, the popular American had rounded on the crowd at Brookline in Boston for the way some of them were heckling his singles opponent Colin Montgomerie.

With the United States having won in highly controversial fashion 30 minutes earlier, Stewart even conceded defeat on the final green, saying his individual record meant nothing to him.

Montgomerie felt honoured to have shared that afternoon with Stewart, the last time he competed on a world stage.

And now Clarke's absence will bring it home again that there are matters of far more significance in life than trying to win a major.