England golf coach Steve Robinson contender for top award

Coach Steve Robinson, who steered the England Golf women’s team to become double European champions, has been nominated for a top award.

Robinson, the highly-respected head PGA Professional at Sandburn Hall Golf Club near York, has been nominated for the ‘High Performance Coach of the Year’ award at the 2017 UK Coaching Awards. 

His nomination comes after a season of outstanding successes. First, he guided the England women’s team to their second successive European championship gold medal.

Then he followed up by coaching the Yorkshire boys’ and women’s teams to victory in their respective English County Championships. Between them the two teams have now won 13 English County Championships while being coached by the Yorkshireman. 

Robinson, who has been the England women’s coach since 2008, has also notched up a European silver medal and five Home International wins during his time in charge. 

He credits England Golf with helping him to develop as a coach by encouraging him to go on a UK Sport Inspired programme, working with other Olympic sports. “As a coach I ask other people to get better and I felt perhaps I should look at myself and try to get better,” he remarked. The two European championship wins followed and now there’s the preparations for a possible hat trick. 

“It’s a massive ask but also a huge opportunity. There are not many teams in any sport that get to be European champions three years in a row. It’s going to be hard, everyone will be aiming for us, but we have got to try and totally embrace that challenge,” he said.

Robinson, who was England Golf’s 2016 Coach of the Year, said of his latest nomination: “There’s a lot of good coaches out there and it’s nice to see golf get some recognition.

“From a personal point of view, I’m obviously delighted to have been nominated, but I’m also very pleased because there’s a lot of coaches in golf who don’t get any recognition."

 He faces stiff competition in the ‘High Performance Coach of the Year’ category. 

He is up against sailing coach Ben Rhodes, fencing expert Ziemek Wojciechowski, and the trio who helped mastermind Great Britain’s relay success at the Athletics World Championships in August - Stephen Maguire, Benke Blomkvist and Christian Malcolm.

“We’re now up there along with the other top sports and there’s some pretty stiff opposition,” Robinson added. “We all love golf and it’s nice to see I’m a name in there alongside the guys who coached the world champion sprint relay team to victory.

“I have no expectations, I’m just delighted I’ve made it into the final four and am representing England Golf, The PGA and the work all of us golf coaches do.”