Figuring When To Buckle Down

"Every week ran together. . . . That feeling of getting kicked in the face every week woke me up. Just making money isn't what I want to do. I'd like to win golf tournaments and be in the hunt," Kim said. "If you haven't even seen the course or played a practice round, you're asking to get beat. I'm not going to put myself in that position anymore."

Instead, he listened to veterans such as Mark O'Meara, who once helped the young Woods, as well as Jeff Sluman and Todd Hamilton. "I'm actually starting to listen to the great advice some of the older guys have given me instead of just shrugging them off," Kim said. "My demeanor has gotten better in all aspects of my life."

This weekend may become another career steppingstone for Kim. Few players figure to profit more from Woods's absence the rest of this season. Just as he needs to establish his confidence, Tiger isn't there to squash it.

"People want to find somebody that's going to challenge the top guys . . . I'm not just the kid with the belt buckle. I have a win," Kim said. "I'm playing good golf. So I'm excited . . . and hopefully I can be discovered here."

While Kim finds himself at the beginning of his career arc, Begay knows he's at the end of his and is, relatively speaking, at peace with it. He and Woods talk about their baby daughters, almost identical ages.

"Me and Tiger will be caddying for our daughters in about 10 years," Begay said. "It will be a blast."

One of the recurring patterns in Woods's behavior is his capacity for friendship. Once attached to you, he sticks.

"We've talked a lot more since he's in bed most of the time," Begay joked. Yet it is Begay who clearly gets pride out of coaching Woods in coping with severe injury and the prospect of long rehabilitation. It's payback and he relishes it. "Tiger never lost faith. That's helped me through some of the hard times."

A scoreboard tells you everything and nothing. Golf is the game that preaches: "It's not how. It's how many." But two men with the same "67" by their names can be at opposite sides of the golf world -- same talent when young, but with different outcomes, depending on many a twist of luck or temperament. And all of it condensed in a decade-or-so when everything that matters in a career is decided -- a kind of blur, a "mix" as Kim calls it, where you can get lost before you know it.

"If something doesn't improve here in the next couple of years, I'm probably going to call it quits," Begay said. "Playing injured out here is better than not playing at all because so many people dream about being on this tour, playing at this level and being at places like Congressional that, for me to sort of turn my back on that, I think would have been a shame, and I don't want to do that."

Why continue against odds so long? "Out of respect for the game and my talent."

Some learn it early, some late.