BATON ROUGE – Not only will four former Tigers be teeing it up on the PGA TOUR and Web.com Tour this weekend, but three current and future LSU stars have made the trip to St. Simons Island, Georgia, to compete against many of the nation’s top amateurs at the 2015 Jones Cup Invitational beginning Friday at Ocean Forest Golf Club.
Senior All-American Ben Taylor is set to make his third-straight appearance in the event, while fellow senior All-American Stewart Jolly and Class of 2015 recruit Sam Burns will each make his debut in the 54-hole event running through Sunday’s final round at the par-72 Ocean Forest Golf Club.
Since its inception in 2001, the Jones Cup Invitational has become one of the top amateur events in the United States and attracts many of the top amateurs from across the country and around the world.
In his first season with the Tigers, Taylor recorded a 54-hole score of 10-over par 226 to tie for 26th place in a field of 90 competitors a year ago to kick start a 2014 spring season in which he was named a PING Honorable Mention All-American after leading the team into the Final Four of match play at the 2014 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships.
Taylor, who tied for sixth place individually at the NCAA Championships a year ago, enjoyed a 2014 fall season during which he led the Tigers with a career-low 71.75 scoring average and a pair of top-five finishes in four starts. That included his first victory as an LSU Tiger with an individual title at the David Toms Intercollegiate back on Oct. 5 to lead the Tigers to their second team title of the season.
Jolly enjoyed a brilliant junior season in his own right while earning Third-Team All-America honors from both PING and Golfweek and being named a First-Team All-SEC performer for his efforts in 2013-14. He was also a standout as a senior this fall while following Taylor with a 72.17 scoring average and defending his individual crown at the Golfweek Conference Challenge at Spirit Hollow Golf Club in Burlington, Iowa.
Burns will arrive on campus as a freshman in the fall of 2015 as the No. 1-ranked prep recruit in the United States after signing his National Letter of Intent with the Tigers on National Signing Day in November.
The nation’s No. 1-ranked junior golfer regardless of class in both the Golfweek Junior Golf Rankings and Polo Junior Golf Rankings, Burns capitalized on a brilliant 2014 season in the American Junior Golf Association by being named the Rolex Junior Player of the Year as the premier player in all of junior golf in the United States.
The 2014 AJGA Rolex First-Team Junior All-American emerged as the top-ranked junior golfer in the country in the wake of victories in two of the major championships on the junior calendar with his wins at the AJGA’s Rolex Tournament of Champions at Richland Country Club in Nashville, Tennessee, in June and this year’s Junior PGA Championship at Miramont Country Club in Bryan, Texas, in July.
The LSU Tigers have enjoyed tremendous success at the Jones Cup Invitational over the years, which includes a playoff victory by LSU’s former All-American and NCAA Champion John Peterson during his senior year in February 2011. Former Tiger All-American turned Web.com Tour rookie Curtis Thompson cracked the Top 10 of the leaderboard in a tie for sixth place in the final standings a season ago.