Notah Begay III begins his second golf life in today's opening round of the Sony Open in Hawai'i. Waialae Country Club is a fitting site for the PGA Tour's only full-blooded Native American to "debut" again. He has wrapped himself in Hawai'i's unique attributes to try and assure himself that this time success will not be short-lived.

After growing up in Albuquerque, N.M., Begay, 36, was a three-time All-American at Stanford. His teammates were guys like Tiger Woods and Casey Martin. After earning a degree in Economics, and an NCAA championship, he turned pro in 1995. He became the first Nationwide player to shoot 59 three years later and worked his way up to the PGA Tour, winning twice as a rookie in 1999 and twice again the following year.

Then reality — in the form of a ruptured disk in his lower back — transformed the dream golf life into a reality show of pain and rehab, conscious and unconscious swing changes, confidence killers, missed cuts and relentless doubts. For every two steps forward Begay made over the last eight years, there would be three steps back, and the final step would be excruciating.

"At my lowest point," Begay recalled, "I couldn't lift my right leg off the ground without pain shooting down the middle of my back through my right leg."

Anyone can empathize with his problem, particularly a golfer. Anyone with back problems can practically feel the searing pain Begay has tried to play through for eight years. He estimates he has been "less than 50 percent" almost the entire time.

He is back for what he hopes will be a happy — and extremely long — ending, armed with a tour card from the 2008 Q-School. Begay is looking forward to his first fulltime season since 2004, and returns to one of his favorite places with "a whole legion of doctors," a new swing coach from Maui — Eddie Lee, Director of Golf for the Leadbetter Academy at Wailea — and an old face carrying his bag — brother Clint, who played collegiately for University of Hawai'i-Hilo.

"Q-School didn't really win me anything," said Begay, who tees off at 12:50 p.m. today with Shigeki Maruyama. "It gives me a chance to compete at a high level. That's really what I'm grateful for. Now I'll see if all my work the last two years will hold up over a 25- to 30-week schedule with all the travel and pressure and practice I need. I'm excited, maybe a little bit anxious just to see how things work out."

Lee found Begay putting on the Wailea practice greens a couple years ago. Begay had realized he was "fighting a losing battle" and was in the process of moving to Dallas and bringing in new doctors and coaches.

He was fortunate to find a fine surgeon who was convinced he did not need surgery to stabilize his lower back, a soft tissue specialist who complemented the surgeon's work and a trainer who enhanced all his physical improvements. He sought out a psychologist because "I needed a lot of mental repairs." Meeting Lee was simply fate, and what Lee now calls "the beginning of an incredible journey."

"I was at the point where maybe I needed a new set of eyes, new ideas," Begay recalled. "I asked him to take a look at my swing and we started working together. Slowly but surely we rebuilt my swing to make it more efficient and take some pressure off my back. It all came together at Q-school.

"Eddie has been tremendous. He has a tremendous understanding of the fundamentals of the game and a great eye. He understands golf, he's a good player himself. The first year we tried to figure out what to work on. The second year we tried to make progress and improve specific parts of my game."

Begay was "a coach's dream," according to Lee, working ridiculously hard yet acutely aware of his limitations. They travel to see each other four or five times a year, but do much of their work with online video.

"We put our trust into each other and in return gained mutual respect," said Lee, who watched on tape as Begay shot a 63 in the fifth round of Q-School to climb from 106th into contention. Lee watched the live broadcast of the final round, when Begay birdied three of the final four holes to shoot 67 and get his card with a shot to spare.

"After the last putt dropped and his card was secured I turned to my wife Renee and gave her a big hug," Lee recalled. "There was a lot of emotion going on. Not for me, but just knowing how hard Notah has worked and what he has been through."

Begay also got a text message from Woods — "one of my biggest supporters and best friends" — that day, telling him, "You almost had me in tears."

But no one, aside from Begay and his family, probably has a realistic idea of how much it meant to him.

"It changed the entire direction my career was going," he said. "I was thinking about what mini-tour to play."

Now he is at Waialae, with the ocean on one side, his brother on the other and wife Apryl, 11-month old daughter Antonella and Lee just outside the ropes. It is all good again, though Begay is a realist.

"Playing so bad for so long I don't set goals anymore," he admitted. "People with back problems will understand. Sometimes one bad move or bad swing can throw your back out and then you are out for six weeks. I focus on each day and putting in the effort to get the most out of it."