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Surviving college as foreign student prepared Villegas for PGA Tour

- AP

NEW YORK (AP) -- Camilo Villegas works hard, sets goals and stays organized so he can manage his time. Those are good attributes for any PGA Tour player.

But that's what it took for him just to survive college.

Villegas struggled with his English when he left Colombia to attend the University of Florida, where he found himself in classrooms with as many as 300 students. He could understand better than he could speak, and reading took time.

But he graduated in 2004 with a degree in business and a GPA of 3.8.

"Reading, it was very slow, but it was good," Villegas said. "When you have classes with 300, 400 students, I didn't see the point of showing up. I just got my book, I read it, and I went and took the test. It took time, and obviously coming to Florida and having all those new opportunities was a little overwhelming.

"But you have to just really manage your time, have a good plan for every day and stick to it."

The hardest aspect of a new country was speaking, and Villegas said it didn't help that he was shy. In golf terms, he decided to start firing at flags.

"One day I said, 'You know what? Hell with it. I'm just going to open my mouth, and whatever comes out, comes out,'" he said. "If somebody is going to make fun of me, I'll say, 'Hey, instead of laughing at me, why don't you tell me the correct way of saying it?' And I got better."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 
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