Begay Keeps Swinging Away - Tuesday, June 27, 2006
| CROMWELL, Conn. - A number of golfers are playing effectively well into their golden years, both on the PGA Tour and its over-50 counterpart, the Champions Tour. But that doesn't mean today's' young players are itching to join the senior set. Notah Begay III, a former GHO champion whose career has been stalled by chronic back problems, says he's aged faster than planned. "I'm 33 years old, but I feel like I'm a 50 year old working in the factory, lifting heavy things all day," Begay said Monday from the TPC at River Highlands. "I feel like I have an old back." There have been no easy answers to make his back act its age. "I've seen so many different specialists. Everything short of hiring a psychic and a witch doctor, I've pretty much done everything," Begay said. "And they might be in my speed dial soon." A four-time winner on tour, Begay is well known in golfing circles for a number of reasons. He was a switch-putter for years, he is one of the most prominent Native American athletes in the world, and he once shot 59 in a Nike Tour event. His biggest claim to fame, regrettably, is being Tiger Woods' friend and former Stanford teammate. In the greater Hartford area, however, most remember Begay as the man who sank a birdie putt on the 72nd hole to beat Mark Calcavecchia in the 2000 GHO. Begay was on hand for the opening ceremonies Monday as the 2006 Buick Championship got under way, and said he was glad to learn the event would remain on the Tour's regular schedule. "It's great to be back," Begay said. "I would hate to see this event left off the schedule. It's one of the genuine community events on Tour." After being granted a major medical exemption for his back in 2004, Begay continued to struggle on Tour in 2005. He played in just 11 events and finished 236th on the money list. He failed to regain his Tour card at Q-school in the offseason, and has spent much of the 2006 season playing on the Nationwide Tour. Begay has played in four PGA events this season like the Buick all sponsor's exemptions and has missed the cut in all four. "I've only played about 20 tournaments in over a year-and-a-half," Begay said. "You just can't get good when you're playing two weeks or one week in a row then you have to take a couple weeks off." Begay, who won twice on Tour in 1999 and twice more in 2000, has slipped in the latest World Golf Rankings to No. 996. "The hardest thing has been working through the mental pitfalls," Begay said. "You win four times in two years, you play on the President's Cup team, you're ranked in the top 25 in the world. Then all of a sudden you can't come back to defend (the GHO), you can't play in the British Open the following year even though you're exempt." Despite his trials, Begay's smile is seemingly ever present, and he refuses to feel sorry for himself. "You hear about a lot of athletes dealing with depression and lack of motivation and loss of confidence," Begay said. "All of those things really had a dramatic affect on my outlook on golf. There's been times where I wondered if all the pain and rehab was worth it. But I get up every day hoping I can improve a little bit it." He says he is no longer in pain, but that his back still restricts his range of motion on occasion and will stiffen up on others. But Begay doesn't need a back doctor, a head shrinker or a witch doctor to tell him what he really needs. It's something like "shoot three or four rounds of 65 and call me next week." "I'm just one of those guys that needs a little bit of confidence and I can go a long way," Begay said. |
