Begay back from the wilderness - Tuesday, December 12, 2006

In the homogenised world of top-class professional golf Notah Begay, the only Native American to win on the PGA Tour, has always been an unconventional figure. He wears two earrings, putts left- and right-handed, he has spent time in jail for drink-driving offences, he speaks engagingly about subjects other than the latest changes to his swing and is about to do something that few of his PGA Tour peers would ever dream of doing. He is moving to England.

In the homogenised world of top-class professional golf Notah Begay, the only Native American to win on the PGA Tour, has always been an unconventional figure. He wears two earrings, putts left- and right-handed, he has spent time in jail for drink-driving offences, he speaks engagingly about subjects other than the latest changes to his swing and is about to do something that few of his PGA Tour peers would ever dream of doing. He is moving to England.

While Europe's best players cannot wait to clamber on the next transatlantic jet to the land of multimillion-dollar purses, the 34-year-old American, a friend of and one-time rival to Tiger Woods, will be travelling in the opposite direction to take his place alongside the journeymen on the European Tour. "I'm aiming to start in Abu Dhabi in January and from then on play around 22 to 25 events all around Europe," Begay says, mapping out his 2007 season.

Most American professionals would wince at the prospect of soggy Thursday afternoons at the Belfry and windswept Sundays at the Madeira Island Open but for Begay, whose career has been blighted by injury and depression since he won four times on the PGA in the space of 11 months back in 1999, this is a shot at redemption. "I'm looking forward to it - seeing new golf courses, meeting new people and, most of all, becoming a truly international player."