CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

June 29, 2000

Notah Begay III

NOTAH BEGAY III: It's always hard to come in and play after you've won, because especially the week after, you're so -- you're on such an emotional high, and your adrenaline levels are so high for the weekend that when you come down Monday. It's like you crash. You really almost are depressed and disappointed that all the people are gone and all the hoopla has died down. And to tell you the truth, I was a bit nervous on the tee this morning, just I guess having won twice, I didn't want to put a lot of pressure on myself to have to perform well today. And I came out and I hit some pretty bad shots on the 10th hole, which is a hard hole, and I ended up making bogey and that was just kind of like a wake-up call. After that, I just said, well, if you play bad, you play bad, just don't force it. And so I just tried to make good shots and good swings and not worry about scoring. And look what happens, geez.

NOTAH BEGAY III: Yeah, it was -- I haven't told anybody this, but I looked at the scoreboard, I was sitting behind my putt on the par 5, I think it's 6, and I looked at the scoreboard, I'm 2-under and I'm four back, and I go, well if I just birdied the last four holes, I could be in a tie for the lead. And made that putt; made another putt; hit it two feet on 8; and hit it about three feet on 9.

NOTAH BEGAY III: You know, it was a really fun day, because Olin Browne and John Cook are really great guys to be around. They have been out here a while, and they have always gone out of their way to be real nice to me and I really enjoy playing with them. And that makes a difference, when you're playing in great conditions, the weather is ideal, and you have great company. I don't see why -- I couldn't have gone wrong today.

NOTAH BEGAY III: No. Not at all. I mean, we're just all jockeying for position right now, and some days, you can go out and have a great ball-striking round and miss a lot of putts, and you're only going to be 2-, or 3-under. I guess you've just go got to try and minimize your mistakes throughout the week. But I wasn't disappointed at all, considering coming off a win, I was pretty happy to be there, being 1-over, I think through my first five holes.

NOTAH BEGAY III: I started on 10. I made a bogey, hit my driver to the left and into the trees, and almost killed somebody on my approach shot. Hit the cart path on the right, bounced down and chipped up about six feet and missed it. And then I birdied 15. I drove it into the right bunker and hit a bunker shot out about four feet; made that. Bogey birdied 17. Hit a 9-iron about 146. 18, I drove it into the left fairway bunker and hit a -- I think it was a 7-iron about 20 feet and made that. 5, I hit a pitch shot in there about 15 feet and made it. And 7, I hit a wedge and about 10 feet, and I hit a 5-iron in there about two feet. And 9, I hit a wedge in there three feet.

NOTAH BEGAY III: 10 feet.

NOTAH BEGAY III: I was hitting a lot of greens, and I got way with some errant shots on 3. I pushed it right, but that green is so big, I was on the far right side of the green. I hit two great fairway bunker shots on 12. I drove it in the left fairway bunker and hit it about 20 feet from there. So my potentially trouble spots really turned out okay, but aside from driving it in the fairway bunker on 12 and 18, I really didn't have any difficulty as far as -- I was hitting fairways.

NOTAH BEGAY III: Yeah, they are real soft with the rain last night. The course is just -- the greens are so perfect right now that if you get a good read, you've just got to get it going, it's going to go in.

NOTAH BEGAY III: They are holding. You can go right at the flag. I think the only one that was a bit firm was 5. But you're hitting and 4- and 5-irons into that hole.

NOTAH BEGAY III: It's difficult because you -- the week before, you have -- you've had some good success, and your standards are real high at that point. But you come in, and having -- this is my third time. I guess I've learned my lesson. I just wanted to go out and just piece together a round, and I was fortunate to have some putts fall. I made three putts -- or a couple putts over 15 feet, and any time you can do that, you're usually going to do okay. But I was nervous. I guess just because I wanted to play good again. That probably was the biggest thing for me this morning.

NOTAH BEGAY III: Yeah, I think one thing that helped me is having shot such low scores. I still hold the record for the NCAA tournament, low score 62, and I came back and shot 73 the next day. And after I shot 59, I came back and shot 74. So having been in that zone, in those different areas of my life, I know now better not to go out and just keep pushing and pressing the envelope so hard, because you push yourself into playing bad and you start expecting to hit it five feet all the time. And when you hit a shot 10 feet which is a pretty good shot, you're kind of mad. So I think those two experiences, along with winning on TOUR already, have helped me today. And I took Monday off; I took Tuesday off. I didn't -- all I did was hit chips and putts on Tuesday evening, when it was nice and cool. I wasn't out here grinding, beating balls for hours, and I afforded my body some time to recover, especially coming out of those real hot conditions in Memphis.

NOTAH BEGAY III: That's funny, that guy is comic relief. On the 11th tee after I made my bogey, he goes: "Don't worry, it's just Thursday." He goes: "You can't win it today." He goes: "Let's just not shoot ourselves out of it." That kind of brought me back into focus.