For the past three years, former Coronado and UTEP star Greg Yellin lived his life’s dream of being a pro golfer.
He toured around Mexico, around the American Midwest, he went to Q school and found whatever mini tours he could find.
Most importantly, Yellin learned quite a bit as a professional about himself and golf.
He had a lot of fun and some success, it was extraordinarily difficult lifestyle but he wanted to stay around the game for as long as possible. When Yellin sustained an injury in December, he knew it was time to start looking at how all this could weave into his future.
The answer was as obvious as they come. When his college coach Aaron Puetz had an opening for an assistant, Yellin, who graduated from Coronado in 2017 and UTEP in 2022 as a dominant player for both schools, knew he wanted to spend the next part of his life with his alma mater in his hometown.
“It’s really exciting,” Yellin said of his return to UTEP as an assistant for the men’s and women’s teams. “Having been a player at UTEP and played professionally for a couple of years, to have the opportunity to now get into coaching and help younger college golfers, it’s going to be a great transition, and I’m really excited to start helping them.”
“It’s even better to do it with a coach I played for in a city I grew up in. It’s a perfect fit and I’m very excited for that,” he said.
Just as excited is his coach Puetz, who came to UTEP in 2021 when Yellin was a junior and quickly formed a bond that he knew could lead to more.
“This has been part of of my plan the entire time,” Puetz said. “I know Greg was focused on having a professional golf career, but from the moment I got to El Paso in fall of 2021, Greg had coaching qualities that are hard to describe. You just feel it.”
“My first year, Greg sat in the passenger seat on the van on a lot of trips. We had a lot of deep conversations about everything. I was focusing on Greg achieving his goal of playing professionally but I knew if he needed a Plan B, he’d be a great coach,” Puetz said.
“I really wanted him to achieve his goals playing, but you never know what the future holds. The stars aligned and UTEP golf programs are going to benefit from it, that’s for sure.”
The timing is right. Yellin had some success as a pro, winning a Dakotas Tour event last year and stringing together some top 10 finishes in Mexico’s Gira de Golf Professional Mexicana.
He also found what a challenge it is to play at that level.
“It was awesome, I absolutely loved it,” Yellin said. “Playing professionally is great, it’s fun, it’s a lot different than college golf or anything else. You’re on your own all the time, you spend so much time alone and you’re traveling in the middle of nowhere, staying in people’s homes, doing everything you can to try and make it.”
“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad to it. It definitely gives me a different perspective on golf and professional golf as a whole.”
Here’s what that perspective is: “Just the difficulty of it,” Yellin said. “The difficulty of playing is one thing, but everything else outside of that — all the travel, the finances, the scheduling. You have to do everything on your own, there’s nobody there for you who does that. It takes a lot, it’s a tough thing to pursue. It’s tough to make it work.”
Yellin spent some time in Florida, but mostly he was based out of El Paso the past three years, where he’s lived his entire life. When he was hired at UTEP, he became the fourth El Paso high school product currently on a UTEP coaching staff, along with head soccer coach Gibbs Keaton (Montwood), assistant soccer coach Obed Hernandez (Hanks) and assistant softball coach Cesar Romero (Socorro).
UTEP’s other assistant JP Hayes is also a UTEP alum and has lived in El Paso almost non-stop since arriving in 1983. That’s one of several reasons Yellin knew he would belong at his alma mater.
“I thought it would be a possibility, because I have a good relationship with Aaron Puetz,” Yellin said. “Having played at UTEP, I think it was a great fit. There were other opportunities that came across, but starting here at UTEP with the relationship I have with Aaron and the school, I thought it was a really good place to get into coaching.”
Said Puetz: “It’s rare. We’re so lucky to be able to have Greg continue to call El Paso home. It just shows you what the community of El Paso provides for student athletes, it’s just an incredible experience all around.”
These three years as a pro are another reason Yellin thinks this transition from tee box to coaching will go smoothly.
“I really don’t think it’s going to be that difficult because I’ve been involved with golf my entire life,” Yellin said. “It’s my passion, so I really don’t think it’s going to be that different from what I was doing.”
“It’s just going to be a little bit different perspective, from trying to become the best player that I can be, from now, trying to help college golfers to be the best that they can be.”
“I think being able to put myself in their shoes is gonna be a huge asset.”
Yellin brings quite a bit of that kind of experience to his alma mater in his home town.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: ‘Perfect fit’: UTEP, Coronado alum Greg Yellin fired up to be a golf coach with Miners
Reporting by Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
