WENDELL - Ben Yeargin always enjoyed golf, but never knew how close to his heart the sport really was until he found his calling and ultimately found his way home.

As a kid growing up in Wendell, Yeargin was a top baseball player who pitched his way into Louisburg College where he played for a year until an injury benched him.

“I realized I could play golf pretty well, and I transferred to Greensboro College and walked onto the team,” he said.

In college, times got tough. At age 19, Yeargin lost his beloved dad, Gene, to cancer.

He struggled to cope and eventually dropped out of college and returned home. His dad was just 49 when he died.

“It was a trying time,” Ben Yeargin admitted on a recent rainy, muggy afternoon at the Wendell Country Club where he is now the golf pro.

Yeargin got on with his life, got married and started a family.

He took a responsible job in automotive manufacturing sales, working eight years for Industrial Power Sales in Raleigh, until the business folded. A subsequent job at Stock Building Supply didn’t work out either due to the decline in housing.

Unemployed with a family to support, Yeargin turned to a familiar spot — the country club, a place where he grew up and spent countless hours with his dad.

“I literally was raised on this golf course,” Ben Yeargin said. “I believe I was 7 when the front nine opened.”

Yeargin returned to the golf course where he played rounds and remembered his dad throughout the tough times.

Then the club’s golf pro took a job in Wilmington.

“The club’s general manager, Bob Jordan, approached me about taking over as golf pro,” Yeargin said.

He calls the time that has followed the best three years of his life.

Yeargin is 33 now, and walking in the footsteps his dad left behind. Today, his favorite golfing partner is his own son, 12-year-old Kirby.

“I get as much joy out of playing with my son as I had with my dad and now I can see how much fun my dad had with me,” Yeargin said. “I want to see more kids out here with their fathers. You can’t beat coming out to the golf course and hanging out with your dad.”

His role as golf pro has rewarded him in other ways, too.

Last summer, he broke the Wendell Country Club course record, scoring a 61, which is a personal record too.

He plays golf three times a week, coaches a junior league, plays with a group of senior men and takes his son on golf outings.

“We have been to the Masters Golf Championship in Augusta the last two years,” he said. “It is not like anything else we have ever experienced.”

The two have also competed in the Carolinas Golf Association’s father/son event twice.

Yeargin feels nostalgic when he and Kirby are on the course, especially on the back nine where he and his own dad made so many happy memories, but he doesn’t wallow in it.

He's just grateful for everything golf has provided.

“Bottom line; I had a great childhood. I went through difficult times. I have floundered, but I ended up exactly where I am supposed to be,” he said.