Cohen Trolio – Syndication Server

LSU wins season-opening Golfweek Collegiate Kickoff at Dalhousie with top-to-bottom effort

“It was a good step for our team, and everybody played a role. That’s good to see this early in the year.”

In a wave of LSU birdies – 60 of them over three days at Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Missouri – the two Cohen Trolio made first thing Tuesday morning were a couple of the most important.

Facing two holes to close his second round on Tuesday morning in the Golfweek Collegiate Kickoff, Trolio birdied both, “which helps just in general with the whole vibe of the team,” said LSU head coach Chuck Winstead. By the end of the day, the Tigers were carting off a team trophy in their first start of the season.

Nine of 12 teams in the field had to pack it up early on Monday, their first 36-hole day of the fall season, when lightning forced play to be called early in the evening. LSU had an eight-shot lead on Stetson by that point. They slept on it, came back to Dalhousie on Tuesday morning and after a 2-over final-round score, finished at 20 under for the tournament. LSU held off a charge from Missouri to win by seven shots.

“It was a good step for our team,” Winstead said, “and everybody played a role. That’s good to see this early in the year.”

To Winstead’s point, LSU’s low score in the final round came from freshman Jay Mendell. The Tigers’ other new man in the lineup, fifth-year senior Alex Price, won the individual title by a shot. Trolio, of course, bridged the momentum from rounds 2 to 3, logging a top-5 finish individually in the process.

This early in the season, college golf coaches are still in the learning phase. Winstead spent the weekend getting to know the two new men in his lineup a little better. Price arrived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after four standout years at Christopher Newport, which competes in NCAA Div. III. After opening rounds of 65-66, Price closed with a 2-over 74 on Tuesday and won his first Division I start. As Winstead noted, what else needs to be said about that?

“He had a big lead and that’s not always easy to play with and it came down to the last hole, it always does. The thing that was obvious was he birdied 16, he made a really good par on 17 which was one of the harder holes out there today with the hole location and then grinded out a par on 18 but looked the whole time like he never lost his composure,” Winstead said. “That speaks volumes for who I think he is, and we’ll find out more with the rest of the season.”

As for Mendell, Winstead spent most of Monday watching the newcomer from Lafayette, Louisiana, and loved what he saw. Mendell offered a counting LSU score every round, but on Tuesday his 3-under 69 led the team. He tied for 10th individually.

Winstead sees similarities between Mendell and past Tigers who have found success at LSU and beyond.

“He hits the golf ball really well and he’s not afraid to be coached into the correct numbers and the correct lines,” Winstead said, “and that’s not something that I necessarily would have known until we got into a tournament.”

In the Missouri huddle, new head coach Glen Millican is doing quite a bit of learning about his lineup, too. Millican only beat his players to campus by a couple of weeks this fall, having taken the Missouri job after spending the past 22 seasons as the head men’s coach at New Mexico.

Millican’s men made a run at LSU on Tuesday, going 8 under in the final round. That was the best score of the day by 10 shots.

Missouri senior Jack Lundin had a birdie putt on the 18th hole to tie Price for individual honors, but made par there to finish at 10 under, one back. The Tigers also got a top 10 out of sophomore Alfons Bondesson.

“It’s been a little chaotic to start for us as a program with so many changes being made late and so many new things going on for all of us,” Millican said. “Our guys have done an excellent job preparing themselves and it showed by the way they played solid all three rounds.”

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The evolution of Cohen Trolio: Past Jones Cup contender shelved his basketball shoes for golf spikes as LSU freshman

The LSU freshman returns to the Jones Cup with even more tools in his pocket.

When the Jones Cup rolled around in 2020, a 17-year-old Cohen Trolio wasn’t even sure he’d play. It was right in the middle of basketball season for Oak Hill Academy in West Point, Mississippi. Trolio, a shooting guard, had spent the winters immersed in basketball since the fifth grade.

“A body can get so messed up if all it does is golf from the time you’re born to 18 years old,” Trolio reasoned, citing wisdom from dad and swing coach V.J. Trolio, a teaching pro at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, who always encouraged his son to play other sports growing up.

Cohen, the offensive MVP for Oak Hill during his junior season, brought his basketball shoes to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last fall just to shoot around in the gym every now and then. But high tops are mostly just a relic from a past life for Cohen, a freshman on the LSU men’s golf team.

This is the third straight year Trolio, now 19, has teed it up in what is arguably the most important men’s winter amateur tournament on the calendar. It usually feels like winter in Sea Island when the Jones Cup is played at Ocean Forest Golf Club, but a south wind greeted the field on Friday which not only felt refreshingly balmy but made many of the long holes play downwind.

Palmer Jackson led the field with a 6-under 66 in Friday’s first round, but Trolio was only five behind after a round that included three birdies on the front nine and two bogeys on the back. For the second round, Trolio was anticipating a change in wind direction and a drop in temperature.

Leaderboard: Jones Cup

Two years ago, Trolio played his way into the final group at the Jones Cup and was tied for the lead with Davis Thompson. He was still a relative unknown despite his U.S Amateur semifinal run the previous August (which he made without a World Amateur Golf Ranking number next to his name considering he didn’t even appear in those rankings). Trolio slid to a tie for sixth in the final round but still finished among a handful of U.S. Walker Cup team members and players vastly more experienced than him.

“(Thompson) broke the course record that day so there wasn’t really much catching up,” Trolio remembered of the final round, “but I learned a lot from it and we’ll see what I can apply to the place this year.”

Basketball behind him, the Jones Cup now falls squarely in the middle of the college golf season. Trolio broke for the winter with a list of needed improvements from head coach Chuck Winstead and went home to his team — which not only includes dad V.J. but also short-game coach Tim Yelverton, who teaches out of the bay right next to the senior Trolio at Old Waverly Golf Club — to put together a plan. He already likes where that’s taken him.

Last year, Trolio was third at the Terra Cotta Invitational, won the Mississippi State Amateur and finished in the top 25 at the Southern Amateur. He only played one junior golf tournament – the U.S. Junior Amateur – and finished runner-up to Nicholas Dunlap there.

Cohen Trolio hits his second shot from the fifth fairway during the final match at the 2021 U.S. Junior at The Country Club of North in Village of Pinehurst, N.C. on Saturday, July 24, 2021. (Chris Keane/USGA)

The Mississippi State Amateur victory brought a spot in the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson (Mississippi). Trolio opened with 1-under 71 but missed the cut after a second-round 75. He won’t forget being with his dad and Yelverton on the range — just another pupil among Tour players like Chad Ramey, Scott Stallings, Lucas Glover and Kevin Kisner.

“It was kind of fun hanging out with that whole crew and dad kind of being a coach to us all,” he said.

The 2020 Jones Cup was the first tournament Trolio played after his semifinal run at the 2019 U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst. He remembers the noise from that week and felt lucky to have been working with sports psychologist Brett McCabe from the time he was 15 to learn how to handle it better. He also returned home grateful for a network of better players who helped him keep the accomplishment in perspective.

Back at Old Waverly, Trolio “got beat up a little bit so I came back down to where I needed to be.”

“That kind of molded me, was a part of molding my game into what it hopefully will be one day,” he said of the experience. “I’m not near what I need to be yet but we’re getting closer and closer every day.”

Everything has a purpose on Trolio’s path. High school hoops made him anything but shy despite being a freshman.

“I learned how to be a leader as the underclassmen and I kind of saw what good leadership looked like,” he said. “When I get to college golf, like it doesn’t feel weird for me to speak up when I’m a freshman when I see something.”

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‘This is the big one’: Nicholas Dunlap, 17, claims U.S. Junior title over Cohen Trolio

Nicholas Dunlap now gets his name etched into the U.S. Junior trophy after a long week at the Country Club of North Carolina.

As Nicholas Dunlap correctly noted on Saturday night, the U.S. Junior “is the big one” in junior golf. Dunlap now gets his name etched into the trophy after a long week at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

“My heart is still beating 100 times fast. This is unbelievable,” he said by way of reaction.

Dunlap, a 17-year-old from Hunstville, Alabama, playing his second USGA championship, took down Cohen Trolio on Saturday evening at the end of the scheduled 36-hole final. Dunlap prevailed by a 3-and-2 margin after being in control of the match for much of the day.

Scores: U.S. Junior Amateur

Trolio, who will play for LSU beginning this fall, did this dance backwards. Two years ago, he was a semifinalist at the U.S. Amateur played at nearby Pinehurst No. 2. His trip to the U.S. Junior finals gets him a return trip to that championship next month (though he was already safely in courtesy of his 2019 U.S. Am run).

Dunlap’s spoils are on an entirely different level. Courtesy of his win, he’ll play the 2022 U.S. Open.

“It’s my first PGA Tour event, first major,” Dunlap said. “I’m sure I’m probably going to be this nervous or even more. As a 17 or — I don’t know if I’ll be 18 by then, it’s just going to be a learning experience for me, and I’m going to go into it with as much confidence as I can and play my game.”

At CCNC, Dunlap benefited from a caddie who has been on that stage. Jeff Curl, who played the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club, proved to be a formidable partner when it came to navigating the match-play bracket.

“You know, more words than I could ever say to thank Jeff,” Dunlap said. “He’s been there through all my ups and downs. He’s taught me so many things. He had, gosh, 20, 40 times this week he would either call me off, different club, different read on a putt, and without him this week there’s no way I would be here.”

Already this year, Dunlap has won the Dustin Johnson Junior World Championship by two strokes, placed second in the Pete Dye Invitational, tied for second in the Wyndham Invitational and tied for fifth in the Western Junior. Interestingly, he’s a former national finalist in the NFL Punt, Pass & Kick competition.

Saturday, however, was on a different level. It will forever be the day that Dunlap became a USGA champion.

“I’ve won tournaments in the past, but nothing like this,” he said. “This is unbelievable. The setting of it, in Pinehurst, to win — hopefully maybe I can win and defend next year, but to win this year at Pinehurst on this golf course, I’ll remember it forever.”

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Luke Clanton’s magical U.S. Junior run ends as Cohen Trolio, Nicholas Dunlap advance to final

Luke Clanton was the breakout star of the week at the U.S. Junior, but Cohen Trolio and Nicholas Dunlap will play for the title.

At USGA amateur championships, there’s always the realization that good things must come to an end. On Friday afternoon at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Luke Clanton met his end short of a trophy but with a big bag of wins regardless.

Clanton, the 17-year-old from Miami Lakes, Florida, tore through the match-play bracket mid-week and downed three top players to score a semifinal pairing opposite Cohen Trolio, himself a semifinalist from the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst in 2019. Trolio proved to be the buzzsaw that Clanton couldn’t get past.

“It just didn’t go my way today,” said Clanton, who at No. 33 had the highest seed of any semifinalist. “I can’t really say anything else. I just didn’t perform nearly good enough. Congrats to Cohen; Cohen played really well. I hope he pulls through and wins the championship match. He deserves it, as good as he played today.”

Scores: U.S. Junior Amateur

Clanton, who has committed to Florida State, birdied the first hole but found the tables turning when Trolio, who will play for LSU, birdied Nos. 3 and 5. Trolio extended his lead by winning Nos. 7-9 then 11 and 12. The match was over by No. 14.

Still, for Clanton, head-to-head victories over top-seeded Kelly Chinn, CCNC member Jackson Van Paris and two-time Alabama State Amateur champion Gordon Sargent made him arguably the breakout star of the week on a bracket loaded with talent.

“It was an awesome learning experience, but it’s a tough one to really handle,” Clanton said. “I really wanted to win this one.”

As for Trolio, the 18-year-old seems to find his flow in Pinehurst. His breakout performance came two years ago at the U.S. Amateur. He played the Southern Amateur at Old Waverly Country Club in West Point, Mississippi, where his dad V.J. is the head of instruction, last weekend before immediately hopping a plane to play this event, which started Monday.

“Yeah, I’ve been playing super solid golf for the last couple months. This week just kind of hit the flow. I finished fourth round at the Southern, kind of literally hopped on a plane, flew here, played a practice round on Dogwood the next day. It was just kind of the same flow.”

Junior golf is a small world, and it’s not often a player catches a man on the other side of the bracket with whom he’s unfamiliar. Trolio admitted to knowing both Luke Potter and Nicholas Dunlap – the other two semifinalists – and will ultimately meet Dunlap in Saturday’s 36-hole final after the Huntsville, Alabama, native dispatched Potter, of Encintas, California, by a 3-and-2 margin.

Potter had the upper hand for much of the front nine, with Dunlap 2 down entering the back nine. But Dunlap fought back and ultimately closed out Potter when he birdied Nos. 14 and 15 then won No. 16 with a par.

“It’s unreal,” Dunlap said of his spot in Saturday’s final. “I’ve played the last six or seven weeks on the road, and I want to win everything I play in, obviously, but I’ve been trying to get my game ready for this week and for the next week for the U.S. Am. To be able to do it, it feels great.”

The winner of Saturday’s final will earn, among other things, an exemption into the 2022 U.S. Open.

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