Who golfs? Barbara Pearson

Barbara Pearson

Chattanooga

Retail Operations

Barbara Pearson sees Fuzzy Zoeller every time she flips open the screen on her smartphone.

“Oh, he’s the greatest,” said Pearson, who manages some retail operations at Moccasin Bend Golf Course. “I love that picture.”

Pearson, who lived in several states before moving to Chattanooga two years ago, has played golf her entire life. She spent her pre-teen and high school days in the Pinehurst, N.C., area.

“Your only options there were to either ride horses or play golf,” she said. “I played golf a lot better then than I do now.”

Her golf career has taken her from Bethesda Country Club in Maryland to Southern Pines in North Carolina as well as a recent stay in Connecticut.

“They told me that I was the first female standard-bearer for a tournament at Pinehurst back when I was 13 or 14 years old,” Pearson said.”I remember when Chi Chi Rodgriguz gave me a piece of gum, the kind that squirted. It was cinnamon, and he goes, ‘You never had that before?'”

Years have passed and Pearson and her boyfriend Chris Currier moved from Connecticut to Chattanooga. They didn’t like living in the Northeastern state. But they love Chattanooga.

“I play golf two or three times a week,” she said. “I love it here.”

­– David Uchiyama