Lorenzo Pinili: GAM Junior Boys’ Player of the Year

By Greg Johnson

The year 2023 was huge for Lorenzo Pinili of Rochester Hills. He won the stroke play title at the Michigan Junior State Amateur, reached the quarterfinals in the Michigan Amateur, won the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Division 2 individual state championship with a record score, was named the state’s Mr. Golf and embarked on his collegiate career at Michigan State University. 

“The goal is always to improve and finishing the year at the top of the points list tells me I accomplished the goal by getting better and being more consistent,” Pinili said. 

Pinili, 19, has been named the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) Junior Boys’ Player of the Year.

“It’s a nice way to wrap up my junior golf career,” he said. “Having success in GAM and other tournaments I was able to hit all the milestones with boys’ golfer of the year being one of them to complete my junior career. I’m really happy about that. The next goal will be to keep going and work to be the men’s player of the year.” 

Pinili topped the points list with 1,130 points, just ahead of Will Preston of Grand Rapids (1,115 points), who won the Michigan State Junior Amateur Championship and is headed to Penn State University’s golf program next fall. 

Drew Miller of East Lansing, a Country Club of Lansing course record holder and last year’s GAM Junior Boys’ Player of the Year who is joining Pinili at MSU next fall, was third with 642.5 points. Julian Menser of South Lyon (607.5 points) and Peter Roehl of Rochester Hills (592) rounded out the top five. Menser is also headed to MSU, and Roehl has signed to play college golf at Oakland University. 

Pinili felt winning medalist honors in the U.S. Amateur sectional qualifier at MSU’s Forest Akers Golf Course was his top performance of the summer.  

“It showed me I had resilience,” he said. “I was 1-under after round one and knew I had to rally back and dig deep to make the U.S. Amateur. I shot 7-under in the second round and it proved to me I have the ability to get the job done.”