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Hitting with Begay
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up. Sunday, July 16 GLASGOW, Scotland -- Notah Begay III has been so hot lately -- consecutive PGA Tour wins and now a fourth-place tie here at the Standard Life Loch Lomond -- that I thought we might follow him to the practice range and learn something. I visited Begayat his Albuquerque home in June, when he was preparing for the U.S. Open and I was researching the profile that ran two weeks ago in SI's Golf Plus section. We mostly ate and talked, but I also spent an hour one afternoon watching him practice on the private range at the University of New Mexico Championship Course. "This is the best facility I've ever seen from a pure practice standpoint," he told me. "They could mow it a little tighter, but you can't have it all." I was surprised by his evaluation because the UNM golf team's range is a flat, featureless, 300-yard stretch of turfgrass. The tee area is not elevated, or even marked, and there are no green complexes or mounds, so you can't see exactly how far out the balls are landing. But I suppose flat ground gives the good player the truest read of his distances and trajectories with different clubs. And the grass was terrific. Begay had chosen early afternoon for his practice session, a time when the high sun gave him sole possession of the range. He hit brand new Nike balls, which his younger brother and caddie, Clint, collected periodically and brought back in a black shag bag. (Clint, watching from the shade of a golf cart, wore the red tee shirt of the University of Hawaii-Hilo, where he is a student. Notah, working in the sun, wore fashionable pleated slacks and a polo shirt.) From time to time, Notah picked up a monocular range finder to check a yardage. His other practice tools were a digital camcorder, a tube of SPF-15 sunscreen, sunglasses and several bottles of water. I watched Notah hit a series of 3-iron shots off the grass. In Hawaii in January, he was playing a high fade. Now he was hitting a low draw and hitting it very well. "If I hit it that straight next week I won't have any trouble," he said. But he quickly added that the best shotmaker rarely wins a given tournament. "It's the guy who makes the most damn putts." Swish, CLICK, pffffffffft! Another Nike ball rocketed downrange. Notah's swings looked identical to my eye, but he concentrated mightily on his grip and setup, pushing his hands a hair forward at address or lowering them a smidgen. He sits into his address position with successive knee jerks, as if to lower himself with a jack. "I grew up with no mechanics," he explained. "I'm just starting to understand it. At 27!" He laughed and smacked another 3-iron, CLICK, pffffffffft! "When I was learning, I would just see the ball in my mind. Spinning." After a while Notah put down the 3-iron and started hitting 115-yard wedges. Within minutes, a cluster of balls had accumulated within a stride or two of his target flag. He then switched to the shot that plagues him -- the pitch from 55 yards. His target was a trampoline-like basket on the left side of the range, and everything he hit either sailed just over the basket and a hair right, or landed short and bounced over. He said, "I work hard on these yardages, and I'm still not very good. I just can't find a comfortable way to hit them." Sixty yards? No problem. He demonstrated by hitting three straight shots to a spot the size of a tablecloth. But 40 to 55 was tough. He flew another ball over his target and shook his head. "I'm still learning it." Begay is not tied to any one swing theory; in fact, he'll try practically anything. It's well known that he putts either righthanded or lefthanded, depending on which way the putt breaks. (He wants the ball above his feet in a "hook" lie.) He taught himself to do that when he was a freshman at Stanford, training his left side by eating, writing his scores and even throwing a football with his left hand. Less successfully, he took a two-year detour into the Natural Golf swing: 10-finger grip, wide stance, follow-throw that looks like a geek with a dowsing rod. "I think that's why it took him a couple of years to make it to the tour," said Clint. "He was messing around with that Moe Norman swing." CLICK, hold the follow through, stare ... Notah landed one in the basket. "About time!" he laughed. So how often, I asked, did Notah have the complete ballstriking package? How often did he possess what his former Stanford roommate, Tiger Woods, called his A game? "There are two weeks in my life that I distinctly remember hitting it great," Notah said. The first occurred when he was 17 and playing in the Albuquerque City Championship. (Notah shot 19-under in the three-round event and won by a ton.) The other happened one year at the Golf World Collegiate Tournament at Hilton Head, S.C. "Two weeks. That just tells you it's so rare." His first PGA Tour victory, at last year's Reno-Tahoe Open, was probably a B+, if you graded it strictly on ballstriking. His second win, a few weeks later, wasn't even a B. "I won the Michelob out of pure heart," he said, "and a few things falling my way." I also asked Notah to assess his season to that point. "I've struggled all year," he said. "I had two good weeks and made two hundred grand. Otherwise" -- CLICK, hold, stare -- "It just hasn't clicked yet." It has since clicked. Or should I say, CLICKED. Begay finished 23rd at the U.S. Open. He won in Memphis. He won in Hartford. Since that day in Albuquerque, Begay has won $1,097,1050 and £74,586, shot nine consecutive tournament rounds in the 60s, gotten his picture in consecutive issues of Sports Illustrated, and even been offered a small role in an upcoming Nicolas Cage movie. But enough about him. Next time we'll return to golf the way we play it -- the CLICK being closely followed by the CRASH. Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity advice, share your experiences or suggest a driving range, click here.
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