	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

U.S. MID-AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

October 11, 2017

Devaughn Robinson

Atlanta, Georgia

Q. How you feeling?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Pretty good, yeah.

Q. How would you analyze your play this week?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Steady. I haven't done anything too extravagant, besides second stroke play round I birdied five of the six on the last, on the turn, to kind of get me started out and in a good position to get into stroke play.

Other than that it's been steady: not a lot of birdies, not a lot of bogeys.

Q. Is this typical? Are you playing typical?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I guess if you would ask my friends, the guys I play with most back in Houston, they would say yes. Typically a lot of pars and not a lot of blemishes.

Q. Okay. Talk about when you were a kid and saw your dad hit a 7-iron and wanted to be on the PGA Tour and play at the highest level.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Absolutely.

Q. Are you on track to do that?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: To get to the PGA Tour?

Q. Yes. Obviously you must have set goals along the way.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Absolutely. Well, this is a major milestone.

Q. Okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I always wanted to compete in a USGA event. I played in the 2014 Pub Links, but I didn't compete, if it you know what I mean.

Q. Yeah. You played stroke play and...
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON. Didn't get to match play. I've been playing some solid golf about the last two or three years. The results haven't shown, but I know that I've been close and I know that I've been just steadily progressing, just little by little.

Then last week in the Houston Am I kind of got something going and won that in a playoff.

Q. Correct.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Then just been super steady this week.

Q. Does this so far top anything else you've done?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Houston Am was pretty special to me. I played in that tournament six our seven times I think, and I've been close six or seven times.

To win was pretty special. I won my national amateur event last year, which is something that I always wanted to do.

Q. Okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Smaller, easier field, but I've always wanted to do it.

Q. What were the main obstacles growing up in the Bahamas?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Playing golf, access to courses.

Q. Okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I'm not going to say there wasn't any access, but it was very limited. I could chip and putt as much as I wanted. I had a good friend, Ricardo Davis (ph), that I had rides with every summer from home to the golf course. I credit a lot of my early development to him and his mother.

Just getting to and from the golf course.

Q. When did you realize you maybe had a special aptitude to play this game?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I think I was maybe 16 or 17; right after I graduated high school. On my home course - I was working there that summer - I was always shooting 1-, 2-under. Every day.

Just one day I went out and something clicked and shot 63. Haven't shot it since, but I think at that moment I knew maybe I could take it a little further.

Q. How did you end up at college in Houston?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: A good friend of mine, still good friend, Georgette Rule (ph), she played college for the university, and the head pro at the golf course that I worked at that summer --

Q. Texas Southern?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yeah. And the head pro that worked at the golf course that summer, he also played for Texas Southern. He just came up to me one day and asked me what my intention were.

I was out of high school and just working at the golf course. I mean, because there is not a lot of -- not a lot after high school in terms of golf. There is no high school golf.

For juniors playing golf in the Bahamas, there is typically not a lot to look forward to afterwards, because we have hardly any junior tournaments and only the wealthy get to go stateside and play.

He approached me and said he would give Coach Hank, my TSU coach in Houston a call. Think maybe a month or two later I was heading to school just to go to school. Nothing involved with golf.

Ended up walking on next semester.

Q. So the course you worked after high school, you worked at a course in the Bahamas?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: In the Bahamas, yes.

Q. What was that course?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: It was Cable Beach Golf Course.

Q. How long did you work there before you went to Texas Southern?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I would say maybe four, five months.

Q. Okay. How did you get into design and drafting? I see also have an aptitude for art.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yeah, I like to sketch and draw. I love it.

I'm always trying to improve. I always wanted to be an architect growing up, aside from golf. When I got to TSU architecture wasn't offered, so I picked the closest thing, which was design technology.

Just fell in love with it and ended up working for Valco Instruments Co. That's the company I work for now. I don't do drafting and design for them anymore, but do I work hand in hand with that department.

Q. What is your title there?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Product compliance manager for the record.

Q. Okay. Are there some things from the art, architecture, design, does any of that correlate to golf in anyway?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yes. I find that when I'm more patient with an art piece, with a drawing or sketch or painting, usually produces better work.

It's kind of like picking your way around a golf course. The more patient you are, the less you try to force, typically the better you are. You can't be on No. 2 and just made birdie, birdie and thinking about I'm going to go shoot 65.

Just got to pick it apart and take your time and pick your spots.

Q. Where did your love for art come from?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Just as a kid. I mean, always just loved to draw and pain. Just always loved it. Yeah.

Q. Okay, you want to go to Q-School, 2017 Q-School.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Well, it'll be 2018.

Q. 2018, okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I would love to.

Q. All right. And your GoFundMe page is going well?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: It was a bit stagnant for a little while, I wasn't putting in as much effort as I should to raise the money after I found out I wouldn't be able to take the time off from working to play.

Q. Okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: But I got a huge boost from a friend of mine a couple weeks ago, which will go a long way for next year.

I got some really good friends back in Houston that want to see me do well and go far.

Q. Obviously this is going to help.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yeah, I hope so.

Q. So you're looking at fall 2018. What are you looking at between now and then?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Hopefully the finals here.

Q. Okay.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: So I've got the Latin Am in January.

Q. Correct.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I've got two Web event qualifiers that are hosted in the Bahamas that I'm going to try to fly to next weekend to compete. Hopefully get into those two.

Q. Would that be for the end of this year?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: That would be the beginning of next, I believe January and February.

Q. But down in the Bahamas?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Down in the Bahamas. We have local exemptions into that event.

Q. Are you hoping this will jumpstart you to get some invitations to some of the top amateur events?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I would hope so, yes. I would hope so. I have always wanted to compete as an amateur at the highest level. Always been a goal of mine.

I always want to continue improving. I mean, when I feel like I've got this thing sorted out, yeah. And I'm feeling pretty close.

Q. In terms of your humanitarian things, you say you get flack for wanting to help others.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yeah.

Q. I can't imagine somebody would give you a hard time for that.
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: Yeah, it's just a lot of people say -- especially my closest friends -- say that I'm too nice at times. I want to -- I go out of my way to help people when I don't have to, when they have other options.

I figure if they ask me, I kind of feel obligated to help out.

Q. Are you nice out on the golf course in match play?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: I don't think so. I think I'm a different person on the match play. I mean, I'm not rude or disrespectful, but I don't think I'm very nice. I keep the conversation short.

Q. You're not conceding ten feet?
DEVAUGHN ROBINSON: No, absolutely not. (Laughter.) Maybe a foot. Maybe.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297