Figuring When To Buckle Down

The names Anthony Kim and Notah Begay III sit side-by-side on the scoreboard at Congressional Country Club, tied in the high-rent district of sixth place at the AT&T National after their first-round 67s. At first glance, they seem to come from opposite poles of the golf planet.

No young player on earth is hotter than Kim, 23, who won the Wachovia Championship by five shots in May and already ranks 20th in the world. Don't say "golfer." Think of a 160-pound all-around athlete who's proud of his L.A. rough edges, of the basketball playgrounds with drug dealers on the fence and of the nine-hole muni course in Griffith Park, where he loved to hang out since he was a scrawny kid. That's where he got his distinctly un-PGA Tour 'tude, symbolized by that huge look-out-world "A.K." belt buckle he wears. And a new buckle just arrived. How big, how sweet?

"It's so nice I had to get insurance on it," Kim said.

He'll break out the new bling this weekend. Say "cocky." Say it twice.

Few players are colder than Begay, 35, who was once Tiger Woods's roommate at Stanford and is playing here on a sponsor's exemption -- not from Tiger, but close. He's not here to win. He just dreams of getting his once-gargantuan game back to the humble point where he can drag himself through qualifying school and get back his tour card. He's ranked 381st, but you could add a zero.

"It was one hell of a surprise for me," he said of his 67.

For Begay, who is still one of Woods's closest friends, this is the last stand, the final chance to leave golf standing tall, after years of back misery and surgery for a herniated disk.

So far apart seem Begay and Kim -- separated by a dozen years in age and light years in status. Yet, Begay once had talent comparable to Kim, if not greater. In his first two full pro years, Begay, the only full-blooded Native American in PGA Tour history, was a four-time winner and cashed his first $3 million in a blink. Then Begay, who like Kim is not a cookie-cutter cultural fit on tour, found out all the ways a glorious career could go haywire -- injuries, putting or just life its own ornery self.

If it wasn't chronic back pain tormenting him, it was the mean greens where he ultimately chose to hit some types of putts right-handed, others left-handed. Begay even landed in jail briefly after two DUI incidents and has battled depression. His story is a cautionary tale, not specifically for Kim, but for every golf supernova, about grabbing your opportunity while it's there, maximizing the good years, taking nothing for granted.

Luckily, Kim actually seems to know, at an age when many are clueless until the water is neck deep and rising, that he is at a classic crossroads where massive talent and instant success sow the seeds for their own unraveling. When told that vets say he has gone from Grey Goose last season back to Golden Goose this year, Kim said: "Whatever they say about me last year was probably true last year. I definitely am not that same person.

"I quit playing towards the end of the season because I was getting beat up every week by these guys. They weren't going out [to party]. They weren't looking for trouble, and I think I was. I felt like an 8-year-old out here. Free golf clubs, free food, everyone takes care of you, you can't do anything wrong. It's easy to get lost in that mix."

Yet Kim, it seems, didn't misplace himself despite a string of 25th- or 35th-place finishes that didn't satisfy his own sense of his destiny. Like Begay, who once shot a 59, tore up college golf and played Walker Cup, Kim operates on the assumption that he's headed to the top.