Famous influences help fuel Sharks’ title aspirations
Rounds of golf with Dan Marino, riding in a red Ferrari and an epic mustache.
Those are among the storylines that emerged from a recent conversation with Nova Southeastern University men’s golf coach Joey Marino and two of his team members, Victor Jimenez and Joseba Torres.
Joey Marino, unlike his famous Dolphins quarterback father, never played football beyond a brief pee-wee-league exposure. Instead, Marino, now 31, gravitated to golf.
He earned a golf scholarship to compete for the University of North Florida, and he has played countless rounds with his dad throughout the years, mostly at Weston Hills but also at Grand Oaks, which is NSU’s home course.
Jimenez, a native of Spain and the son of pro golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez, grew up knowing a bit about celebrity because of his father.
But once he arrived in South Florida, he realized that being the son of Dan Marino is quite a different matter.
“Dan Marino is huge here,” Jimenez said. “I’m not saying my father is not big in Spain. But Dan Marino is a very famous person.”
Jimenez, a senior, is one of the keys to success for NSU’s golf team, which also features true freshmen Javier Calles and Torres; sophomore Emanuel Olofsson; and senior Tomas Millet.
Calles last week was named the Sunshine State Conference’s Freshman of the Year as well as secondteam all-league.
Together those players figure to lead the NSU Sharks in the NCAA South/Southeast Super Regionals that start on Thursday near Lakeland.
NSU is seeking its first NCAA Division II national championships since 2015 under coach Ryan Jamison. The Sharks also won a national title in 2012 under coach Garrett Runion.
Marino, in his third year as NSU’s coach, has built
an 11-player roster that includes four golfers from Spain: Jimenez, Torres, Calles and Millet.
Torres is the nephew of Jose Maria Olazabal, who won the Masters in 1994 and 1999. Olazabal also captained Europe to a Ryder’s Cup championship over the U.S. in 2012, and Torres was there at the Medinah Country Club in Chicago’s suburbs for the event.
“Since I was his nephew, I was allowed to go inside the ropes,” said Torres, who was 10 years old at the time. “I was able to talk to players from both teams.
“It was the first important tournament I was able to attend in person, and it
was incredible.”
Growing up, Olazabal lived in a house overlooking the ninth green at the Real Golf Club de San Sebastian, located in the Basque region of Spain. He started playing at age 2 and would spend every available hour golfing.
Torres, who started golfing at age 3, has played hundreds of rounds with his uncle on that same course
“I learned a lot from my uncle,” Torres said. “In golf, you have good days and bad days, but you have to stick to your plan.”
Torres heard about NSU from former Sharks golfer Martin Larrea, who is also from the Basque region.
Meanwhile, Jimenez,
who is from the Spanish city of Malaga, has had his own unique experiences. His father, who was on two Ryder Cup-winning teams, was known as “The Mechanic” because of his affinity for high-performance cars.
Jimenez once got to drive his father’s red Ferrari for about five hours on a road trip.
As for golf, Jimenez said one of his most memorable rounds was played in La Romana, Dominican Republic, where his father now lives.
“The course is called ‘Teeth of the Dog’, and it’s right on the ocean,” Jimenez said. “The guy who built the course said he designed 10 of the holes.
The other eight holes were designed by God.”
Another thrill for Jimenez was playing a few holes with Dan Marino, which happened two years ago. Marino usually visits his son’s team at some point each season.
All of which leads us to that epic handlebar mustache, which belongs to Jimenez.
The genesis of his stache began during his freshman year, when NSU female golfer Sol Santecchia suggested he shave.
“I told her, ‘I’m going to grow it and curl it,’ ” Jimenez said.
It was a joke at first, but Jimenez hasn’t shaved it since December 2017. He spends a countless amount of time using both of his hands to curl it up, and he got tons of positive comments — even from Dan Marino — before the pandemic forced him to hide that mustache behind a mask.
But at some point, pandemic permitting, he will be able to show it off again.
“It’s growing,” Jimenez said. “It’s like an octopus.”