Notah Begay III is tardy for an afternoon interview, and his excuse, disclosed somewhat sheepishly, is one he has not leaned on in a decade. “Sorry,” he says, “I couldn’t get off the range.”

Begay turned 50 in September, and is a rookie all over again. Friday, he makes his PGA TOUR Champions debut at the Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS event at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Floriday. His first playing career cut short in his 30s by an uncooperative back, Begay – who once captured four PGA TOUR titles in a 10-month span – is equal parts excited and fearful to compete again.

“Everybody deals with nerves,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest things that is overlooked in tournament golf.”

Begay does enjoy the tranquil vibe of his new workplace. Tuesday, he kicked back for lunch and lengthy conversation with major winners Padraig Harrington and Mike Weir. For the next year, his plan is to be a part-time player, part-time television announcer, continuing his work as an on-course reporter for NBC/Golf Channel’s regular TOUR coverage. Begay said he feels ready to compete again. Mentally, he believes he is stronger than ever.

“The last 10 years has been like a graduate course in golf,” said Begay, whose last PGA TOUR start was the 2012 Reno-Tahoe Open. He started in broadcasting the same year. “As an analyst, you have to do statistical analysis, evaluation, talk to players, coaches, trainers ... when I’m covering golf at the live tournaments, I’m not watching one shot. I’m watching three shots, usually. I’m evaluating three games at the same time.”

He will take the best bits and pieces that he has accumulated, tips on training and swing technique and nutrition (he dropped 15 pounds), and try to fit them into his own game.

Begay has been ramping up his training and golf sessions for the last six to eight months, pushing himself physically to discover what his back can handle. The 8-millimeter herniation in his L4-L5 disc remains, but doctors once told him that time would help his old injury, and it has. “We’ll see how it goes,” Begay said optimistically.

He still drives the ball straight and is pleased with the crispness of his iron game at the moment. His short game has shown rust, with Begay having trouble “remembering” certain shots he once utilized. So he’ll keep things simple. The putting, always, has been a strength, with Begay still wielding a Bullseye-style blade that he swings from both sides. He putts his right-to-left putts from the right side, and his left-to-right putts from the left, so that he can match the arc of his putter path with the arc of the putt. He has been putting effectively that way since absorbing a book titled “Inside the Arc” as a youth.

When healthy, Begay won four PGA TOUR events across the 1999 and 2000 seasons, and competed alongside his old Stanford teammate and close friend, Tiger Woods, in the 2000 Presidents Cup. Begay was limited to 12 starts in 2001, making only four cuts, and followed that with three seasons of 23-plus starts. But he really struggled after 2004, his body preventing him from reaching the once-promising potential that he flashed.

David Duval was working his way toward World No. 1 in those days, and remembers the vintage Begay form he witnessed in 1999-2000. Begay not only would propel himself into contention, but could close the deal, too. He won the Reno-Tahoe Open and Michelob Championship in 1999, and added back-to-back triumphs at the FedEx St. Jude Classic and Canon Greater Hartford Open in the summer of 2000. In Hartford, he pulled away with a closing 64.

“It wasn’t necessarily like when you saw a Tiger or Davis (Love III) up there (on the board),” Duval said Wednesday. “But when you saw his name, the one thing I’ve known about Notah for 35 years is that he is not scared about the situation. He is not scared to win golf tournaments. When he was putting himself in that situation, you knew that he was going to be there in the end.

“Obviously, he was one hell of a player.”

(Duval, Begay and fellow broadcaster Justin Leonard, who all worked together at NBC/Golf Channel, are grouped together in Friday’s opening round at 12:15 p.m., a “coincidental” occurrence Duval considers “utterly spectacular.”)

As Begay’s good pal Tiger took over on the PGA TOUR at the turn of the century, Begay headed in another direction. His back tormented him. His confidence sagged. Today, Begay’s career, to those who missed it, often gets summed up in a single sentence: His career was derailed by injury. To Begay, it ran far deeper than a single line in his bio.

“It was more like a decade of frustration,” he said. “It was a disaster, to be quite honest. I wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with that big of a setback. It really weighed me down, and I lost my confidence. I never physically got back to where I needed to get. I never had a chance to play at a high level again.”

It would be understandable for an athlete whose career was cut short by injury to be bitter. As Begay looks back, he is thankful for his road, potholes and all. Leaving a playing career behind so young – his bank account told him it was time to move on – led him into a television tryout, and gave him time to experience other meaningful opportunities.

Begay chose a path to sobriety (12 years and counting) and began the Notah Begay III Foundation in 2005 to provide health and wellness education to Native American youth, lending a hand in some of the poorest communities in the country. For years he had dreamed of building a foundation that could impact lives.

“My sobriety has been a flat-out blessing in my life, personally,” said Begay, a husband and father. “It has taken me to a higher level of understanding of my life, and the things I need to do to fulfill my responsibilities and keep myself in a good frame of mind.

“And our foundation work, we’ve been able to pay it forward. We’ve taken time to provide a program, or service, or information that isn’t a cure-all, but it certainly lets these kids know that they have not been forgotten. Even through my career was cut short by injury, I don’t regret that happening. It forced me to do a lot of other things.”

Friday delivers him full-circle, to where he began. Notah Begay III, golfer. He is excited to see what he has inside.