Home to about 40,000 people, Lisburn is the third-largest city in Northern Ireland and is about 3,600 miles away. It has extra significance for Marquette’s golf program over most cities on the other hemisphere. It is the home of freshman golfer Josh Robinson.
Before Robinson joined the team, he was playing soccer and eventually made the transition to playing golf in Lisburn.
“I was really just busy playing golf tournaments all year. College golf is something I really wanted to do since I quit soccer at age 15-16,” Robinson said. “From then I kind of realized that golf was my passion. What I wanted to do as a career… I just wanted to have the opportunity to come to America and really progress myself as a golfer and a person as well and my education.”
He wasn’t familiar with Marquette until head coach Steve Bailey watched him at a tournament in Northern Ireland.
“That weekend I ended up playing some of the best golf I have ever played and getting to the last 16 of the competition,” Robinson said. “I couldn’t imagine it happening, especially with the talented golfers that were there.”
Although Robinson did not win the competition, losing to the eventual winner of the tournament, it improved his confidence and started his relationship with Bailey.
“For me to get beat by the guy who ended up reaching the final, kind of put in a sense for me how good I played that week because even though I got beat by him, I didn’t get beat by much,” Robinson said. “It kind of made me realize that I was able to compete, and I knew I was good enough to get into college over here.”
After the tournament, Coach Bailey kept in touch with Robinson via email. Robinson expressed his interest to Bailey, saying he wanted to play college golf in America.
“From then on, Coach Bailey had just been sending me emails back and forth just kind of discussing what we thought would be best for me,” Robinson said. “(I was) seeing the program, seeing the university as whole and just realizing that it was a really really good college for both academics and athletics, so we just kind of kept moving forward.”
While Robinson didn’t receive as much interest during recruitment from other colleges, Bailey made him feel very welcome.
“Other colleges were slightly interested, but hadn’t really reached out in that sense like Coach Bailey had,” Robinson said. “He kind of welcomed me with open arms and said that I was perfect for (the) team.”
Moving across the world for college isn’t always easy, though. Robinson said that if there is anything he misses from back home, it is his family.
“I still speak to them a lot, but just like being with them and being able to hear their voice and seeing them in person (is different),” Robinson said. “I kind of miss some of my friends as well, because that was a big part of supporting me to get to this point in my life. Even my best friends, they play golf with me. We play golf competitively. We all push each other.”
Now he and fellow freshmen Bhoom Sima-Aree and Aiden Lafferty have important roles as Marquette looks to replace nearly half of last year’s roster, including 2018-’19 BIG EAST Golfer of the Year Oliver Farrell.
“We needed (the freshmen) to step up right away, losing three guys (from last year) that’s nearly half of our team,” Bailey said. “They’ve filled those roles. Two of them have played in the lineup in two of the three events so far. We’ve needed a lot out of them and they showed up early on.”
