Brian Weis Publisher - GolfTrips.com (left) and Notah Begay III (right)

Interview With Notah Begay PGA Golfer, Architect, and Golf Channel Broadcaster

A Light Hearted Golf Q & A Interview

By Brian Weis

Below is an interview with Notah Begay, the PGA Golfer, Architect, and Golf Channel Broadcaster at . The following are a few traditional and non traditional golf centric questions that I love to ask influential people in the golf industry.

Can you provide our readers a brief biography? Notah Begay was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and graduated from a private high school, the Albuquerque Academy. He attended Stanford University where he was a three-time All-American and a teammate of Tiger Woods. He was a member of Stanford's 1994 NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship team. After graduation, Begay turned professional in 1995.

Begay had a pair of wins in each of his first two seasons on the Tour. From late September 1999 to early July 2000, a period of just over nine months, Begay recorded four Tour wins, with the third and fourth wins coming in successive weeks.

Today, Notah is a full-time member of the broadcast team for NBC Sports and Golf Channel. In addition, he has designed three golf course including Sewalio in Tucson, Arizona.

When did you start golfing and who introduced you to the game?
My mother got me a set of used old clubs and the only pair of used golf shoes we found were women's. Those were the days!

To date, what is your proudest golf accomplishment?
Being on Stanford's 1994 NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship team.

What is your favorite golf destination?
St. Andrews

If you woke up tomorrow and could play one course you played before, where would you play?
St. Andrews

If you could change one aspect, rule or thing about golf, what would it be and why?
I think every course should have a double green.

Dream foursome (living)?
My Brother/Clint, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus

Dream foursome (living or dead)?
Byron Nelson, Francis Ouimet (1913 US Open), and my brother/Clint.

Revised: 12/18/2013 - Article Viewed 32,064 Times

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.