by By Golf Channel Digital
Tiger Woods and Notah Begay III were teammates at Stanford in the 1990s, but their friendship goes back a lot further than that. On Saturday night, presenting Begay for induction into the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame, Woods spoke of the friendship’s origins.
“Let’s go back 30 years ago,” Woods said. “I was 9 years old, pretty hip with my Coke-bottle glasses. … We’re playing the Junior World down in San Diego, Optimist Junior World. At the time I was the only one of ethnic descent playing, and it was a tough and lonely road. At 9 years old, Notah being the elder statesman at 12, he came over to me and introduced himself. He says ‘I’m Notah Begay, I’m just like you, and you’ll never be alone. You’ll always have a friend.’ And from that day on, we’ve been brothers for life.”
In 1994, the year Woods would arrive at Stanford, Begay was captain of the school’s men’s national championship golf team. That year he also set the record for lowest round (62) in the tournament. All told, he was a three-time All-American at Stanford.
As a pro, he became the third player to shoot 59 in a Web.com Tour event, and won four times on the PGA Tour. He currently serves as a Golf Channel analyst and on-course reporter.
