Notah Begay can only remember one time when Tiger didn’t pay attention to him. It was during the 2000 Presidents Cup and Begay asked him for a layup number at a par 5.
“It was alternate shot, and I asked him for a number that he wanted, and he wouldn’t tell me,” Begay recalled. “So what I did was I laid him up to his most uncomfortable number because I knew what his most uncomfortable number was.”
What was the yardage that made Tiger uncomfortable? Begay said it was just inside 100 yards.
“So I laid him up to a bad number on purpose because he was making me mad,” Begay said.
His move almost cost them big time in their match as Tiger skulled the third shot over the green into a back bunker, and forcing Begay to splash out close to the hole just to escape with a tie.
“We both walked off the green kind of chuckling at each other because he knew that he actually should have given me a number for me to lay up to instead of me having to figure it out on my own,” Begay said. “But we’re like brothers. We always have been.”
You can read the full Q&A with Begay here.
That’s not the only time a Presidents Cup teammate of Tiger’s has messed with him.
Fred Couples recently recounted the story of the time he had the 2009 U.S. Presidents Cup team believing that he’d stuck Tiger’s name in the envelope in case an International player had an injury.
Watch Freddie tell the story of his prank, which was so good it had Tiger texting Couples, “Dude, you got the biggest balls of anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Each @PresidentsCup, the captains select a player they're willing to sit in case the opposing team has an injury.
You won't believe who @fredcouplesgolf picked to sit out for the #USTeam in 2009. 😳 pic.twitter.com/BVk6EPKTRv
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) September 15, 2022
