To probe the role of the intrinsic structure of the projectile on sub-barrier fusion, measurement of fusion cross sections has been carried out in $^{9}$Be + $^{197}$Au system in the energy range E$_{c.m.}$/V$_B$ $approx$ 0.82 to 1.16 using off-beam gamma counting method. Measured fusion excitation function has been analyzed in the framework of the coupled-channel approach using CCFULL code. It is observed that the coupled-channel calculations, including couplings to the inelastic state of the target and the first two states of the rotational band built on the ground state of the projectile, provide a very good description of the sub-barrier fusion data. At above barrier energies, the fusion cross section is found to be suppressed by $approx$ 39(2)% as compared to the coupled-channel prediction. A comparison of reduced excitation function of $^{9}$Be + $^{197}$Au with other $x$ + $^{197}$Au shows a larger enhancement for $^9$Be in the sub-barrier region amongst Z=2-5 weakly and tightly bound projectiles, which indicates the prominent role of the projectile deformation in addition to the weak binding.
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