BATON ROUGE – LSU junior golfer Taylor Riley was presented with the Tom Cousins Award at the annual Party on the Green at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia as part of the East Lake Cup that will begin on Monday for some of the nation’s top college golf teams.
The awards committee, which is overseen by representatives from Golf Channel, East Lake Foundation and East Lake Golf Club, name one male and one female recipient from a participating team in the East Lake Cup annually. The award is given to the student-athlete that best exemplifies the civic, community and philanthropic qualities of East Lake Foundation founder Tom Cousins.
Riley, a junior from San Diego, is the daughter of former LSU golfer Michelle Louviere Riley and her dad, Chris, was a PGA Tour winner and recently stepped down after many years as men’s golf coach at the University of San Diego.
“I am very proud of Taylor and think it’s very fitting that she is this year’s recipient of the Tom Cousins Award,” said LSU Head Coach Garrett Runion. “She is constantly thinking of others and putting their needs before her own. She knows the game of golf has blessed her and her family and is using this game to give back.”
Riley is part of the lineup for LSU In the East Lake Cup which over three days starting Monday features a round of stroke lay and then two days of match play. The tournament will be broadcast on The Golf Channel starting each afternoon at 2 p.m. CT. LSU will be joined by Oregon, Southern California and UCLA in the women’s competition.
In 1995, Cousins purchased the historic East Lake Golf Club with the intent that its profits would go back to help the local East Lake community. Cousin’s model of community redevelopment is now being implemented in cities all over the country through a program he founded to replicate the East Lake model called Purpose Built Communities.
He also helped revive and redesign the home course of golfing great Bobby Jones, East Lake Golf Club, which had fallen into disrepair. He hired Rees Jones (no relation to Bobby) to redesign the golf course, which has since hosted the PGA Tour’s season ending Tour Championship, and become one of the leading golf courses in Atlanta. Cousins and his family financed the project to the tune of about $25 million. This was part of a greater revitalization of the East Lake Meadows housing project in the East Lake neighborhood around the golf course.