"There are all these mental walls on the PGA Tour," Freeland says. "A single-round score of 58 is one barrier. Another is, no one shoots 30 under (for a tournament). These numbers scare a lot of people if they're playing well and get close to them. Notah doesn't have that. He doesn't play by the same rules. Right after he shot his 59, he was telling me he's sure he could have had a 57.
"Tiger's the best in the world right now -- he's doing unbelievable things. But long term I see them being eye-to-eye."
This, of course, is faith over reason. Woods dominates the golf world, and is only getting better. But those who know Begay say these kinds
of things about him because of his ability to draw power from the many
rich worlds he has entered in his first 27 years. He embodies what the
political idealists talk about when they argue that America's greatest
strength is its diversity, taking a little from this, a little from that and
rolling it up into something greater.
|  |
| Begay speaks to Native American and other kids at his golf stops around the country. |
Sometimes his worlds collide. At a Nike Tour stop in South Dakota last year, a group of American Indians new to golf followed Begay around the
course, piercing the early-rounds quiet -- and golf etiquette -- with a
series of traditional, high-pitched tribal cheers. Freeland, his caddie that
day, recalls that Begay's pride was tempered by his concern for the
disruption to his playing partners. Begay failed to make the cut.
Usually, his worlds collude. His gift since childhood has been to extract
the best from each new influence or experience, to make him better.
"It was amazing," Zamora says of Begay's years in junior golf. "Every time
he would go out of state, he would never win the first year. Then he would
go back the next year and blow their socks off. It's like with bar fights
and some people -- the first time a fight broke out he wouldn't throw a
punch, but the next time he'd whoop the whole bar."
One hundred and thirty five years ago, in what came to be called the Long
Walk, the U.S. government rounded up 8,000 Navajos from Arizona and made them walk 300 miles to a New Mexico reservation that was more like a prison camp. The great-great-grandson of one of those women now covers that distance in less than a year of playing PGA tournaments, but those walks are amid manicured fairways and man-made lakes, and at the end of the day someone wants his autograph.
Zamora recently got to thinking about the surreal world of professional
sports, how disconnected it is from where Begay came from, and called him to tell him that he loved him, that no matter what happens from here, he considers him a success.
But Begay is not ready to declare victory, of any real kind. His first name
in the Navajo language means "almost there." And truth be told, Begay sees his budding career as something that must grow into something far larger than himself. Since he was a teenager, he has had this crazy idea that he will embolden a nation of Native American kids through a game that few of them play, and that golf will be a vehicle for others to understand the issues of his people.
So he goes to Washington to talk on Native American youth issues. He gets Nike and the U.S. Golf Association to donate equipment and balls to clinics for interested kids. He starts his own fund-raising drive for scholarships and emergency money for American Indians. And if anyone wants to call Christopher Columbus a hero, Begay will calmly explain that, no, he is not, at least to him.
"I'm not an activist," he says. "I'm not going to go out and raise hell and
tell people that they're wrong and they need to change their beliefs. I'm an
advocate -- an advocate of positive American Indian issues. I just want to
break down stereotypes and educate people.
"When I look back 50 years and I'm taking my last breaths, I won't be thinking about golf scores and trophies. I'll be looking at the generation behind me and whether I was an inspiration to them to improve their lives. That's what I want my legacy to be."
The senators should know that Notah Begay's long walk has just begun.
Tom Farrey (tom.farrey@espn.com) is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He produces the online companion series for Outside the Lines and writes a weekly column. Click here to return to the first page of the story, or print out the complete profile on one page.
Notah Begay