Notah Begay III Facts: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The On-Course Reporter
Some of the facts you may not be familiar with about the NBC Sports on-course reporter
Notah Begay III is one of the NBC Sports broadcast team for PGA Tour events, but his association with the game goes back over three decades.
Here are 20 things you may not be familiar with about the former PGA Tour pro.
1. Notah Begay III was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 14 September 1972.
2. In high school, he was captain of the Albuquerque Academy basketball team.
3. He told Golf.com’s SubPar podcast that the team won the state championship, and that inspired the watching Stanford golf coach, Wally Goodwin, to offer him a scholarship for the golf team. Begay III explained: “We won the state championship and then he’s like, well, if this kid’s half as good as he is on the basketball court, I want him on my golf team.”
4. He is a former college teammate of Tiger Woods at Stanford University and a three-time All-American.
5. He was a member of Stanford's 1994 NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship team.
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6. He left the amateur game behind in 1995 and claimed his first win as a pro at the 1998 New Mexico Open.
7. The same year, Begay shot a 59 in the second round of the Nike Tour Dominion Open, and earned his PGA Tour card later that year.
8. Begay picked up four PGA Tour wins in less than a year, starting with the 1999 Reno-Tahoe Open.
9. Following those wins, he reached his highest world ranking – 19th, which he achieved on 20 August 2000.
10. He was a member of the winning 2000 US Presidents Cup team.
11. His best finish at a Major came with eighth at the 2000 PGA Championship.
12. Begay used a putter with playing surfaces at the front and back of the head. That allowed him to use a technique that became known as switch putting, where he would putt right-to-left-breaking putts right-handed, and left-to-right-breaking putts left-handed.
13. He is one of only a few Native Americans to have played professional golf.
14. Begay’s first name in the Navajo language means "almost there."
15. In 2005, he founded the non-profit Notah Begay III Foundation, whose goal is to provide health and wellness education to Native American youth in the form of soccer and golf programs.
16. Begay has had business interests including founder of NB3 Consulting in 2002 and KivaSun Foods in 2010.
17. Begay is the uncle of US National Women’s Soccer League player Madison Hammond.
18. In 2019, a junior championship was established and named after him – the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship.
19. In 2022, he made his PGA Tour Champions debut, finishing with a T67 at the Constellation Furyk & Friends.
20. Begay has worked as an analyst with the Golf Channel and NBC Sports since 2013.
Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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