Auburn Magazine Summer 2007

Page 9

It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course. Hank Aaron

The course of business Bill Bergin ’81 majored in business at AU. He also golfed. The four-time All–SEC champion later played professionally for six years, competing in more than 250 tournaments, including three U.S. Opens, two British Opens and about 50 PGA tour events. The one-time Georgia amateur champion then gave up his nomadic ways to teach the sport at Atlanta’s prestigious Cherokee Town and Country Club. He began fi nding beauty in the elegant shifts of course elevation and terrain, and the way course design affects game play. After apprenticing with award-winning architect Bob Cupp, Bergin established his own course design company and later created the private greens of Auburn University

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Club at Yarbrough Farms. Located off Shug Jordan Parkway, the course covers some 200 acres of rolling wooded terrain around a 25-acre lake. “For a city its size, Auburn has an amazing variety (of courses), a lot to choose from,” he says. “This doesn’t happen in a lot of places.” For now, Auburn’s golf courses—and the town itself—are where LPGA pro Celeste Troche has planted her feet, a continent away from her home country. “It’s such a great town, from every perspective, not just golf,” she says. “It’s friendly and easygoing, and you’ve got everything you need.”

4/11/07 4:14:27 PM


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