Notah Begay III

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1 Amateur wins
2 Professional wins (5)
- 2.1 PGA Tour wins (4)
- 2.2 Other wins (1)
3 United States national team appearances
- 3.1 Amateur
- 3.2 Professional
4 External links

Notah Ryan Begay III (born September 14, 1972) is an American professional golfer. He is the only full-blooded American Indian (Navajo/Pueblo) professional tour golfer in the history of the game.

Begay was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and graduated from a private high school, the Albuquerque Academy. He then attended Stanford University, like Tiger Woods, where he was a 3-time All-American. After graduation, Begay turned professional in 1995.

Begay placed tenth on the Nike Tour money list in 1998, winning a place on the PGA Tour for 1999. He had a pair of wins in each of his first two seasons on the Tour. Since then, he has been plagued by back trouble which has put his future as a professional golfer in doubt. In 2005, he played under a "Major Medical Exemption" with little success. In 2006, he played on the Nationwide Tour. At the end of 2006, he successfully earned a card for the European Tour from their qualifying school. Begay is one of only a handful of professional golfers ever to shoot 59 in a tournament.

In January 2000, Begay was arrested for what, he admitted in court, was actually his second DWI incident. In this second incident, he drove into a parked car while leaving a bar in Albuquerque and was subsequently arrested. Begay was originally sentenced to 364 days in jail. However, in a controversial decision, the judge was especially lenient (perhaps because of Begay's commendable honesty) and all but seven days were suspended. Additional controversy arose when it was discovered that Begay was actually let out during the day while in jail to work at his job. To critics, Begay essentially spent his week of jail "playing golf."

Begay has been featured in the top 20 of the Official World Golf Rankings.