Well that didn’t take long. Lorena Ochoa just recently announced her retirement from golf, but has now agreed to join another retired legend for a unique event on the golf course. Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa, who have combined for 99 career wins, will take part in the third annual Notah Begay Challenge, a fundraiser aimed at helping fight obesity and diabetes among Native American youth.
“They’re very big advocates in their own right for their own causes. For them to get behind this says a lot about what we’re trying to do,” said Begay, the only full-blooded Native American on the PGA Tour. “It means something to people. The only requirement that Annika had was that she had to make sure her ball wasn’t going to count the whole time. She’s a little worried. You never lose that competitive desire. She wanted to make sure she had a safety net.”
“There’s a mutual interest and there’s a lot of crossover,” Begay said. “She works with a lot of the poor Mexican communities, and to a certain degree they’re partly indigenous. A lot of the indigenous traditions in Mexico are similar to some of the southwestern Native American tribes. I think that she does realize that there are some similarities. If we’re able to support her efforts down the road, we’re certainly going to do that.”
The NB3 Challenge, staged at Turning Stone Resort and Casino’s Atunyote (ah-DUNE’-yote) Golf Club, is a collaboration between the resort’s owner, the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, and the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians of California.
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