Pinili Aiming to Add Medalist Honor as Brother Rice Seeks Finals 3-Peat
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 8, 2023
The phrase the “third time is a charm” might often be trite and overplayed, but it also couldn’t apply more to Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice senior golfer Lorenzo Pinili.
Two years ago as a sophomore, Pinili finished as the individual runner-up at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final, five shots out of first at Bedford Valley in Battle Creek.
Last year, Pinili was the runner-up again at Grand Valley State, valiantly rallying from an opening-round score of 76 to shoot a 68 on the second day at The Meadows, but still ending six shots behind.
Both years, Brother Rice won the team title, so Pinili still left happy.
But no doubt, he hopes the third time will be the charm from an individual point of view when he competes at this weekend’s Division 2 Final at The Fortress in Frankenmuth.
“This year, I definitely have a lot more motivation to finish first,” he said. “It’s a lot of patience. That’s what it is. I just have to trust my game and not really force anything. That’s what most people try to do. If they know they want to get a win or know they want to play well, they’re going to start forcing shots that’s out of their comfort zone or do stuff they don’t really do.”
Pinili, who will play collegiately at Michigan State, has been hitting a lot of good shots throughout a golfing life that started when he was 2 years old.
In fact, while Pinili has no recollection of the moment he took up the game, his father Rommel has reminded him constantly throughout his life.
“He said that I picked up a stick while the TV was on and I tried to copy what was on TV,” Pinili said. “From there, he gave me a plastic club, and he gave me real balls. He thought I was making good contact. From there, he gave me real metal clubs, and I was able to hit balls. There’s actually a video on YouTube that you can find of me hitting golf balls at the range when I was 2. From there, it’s been with me my whole entire life.”
Pinili said if there’s one area of his game that has evolved more than any other since he began high school, it’s performing when the stakes are the highest.
Brother Rice associate coach David Sass echoed those sentiments about Pinili’s enhanced ability to stay even-keeled mentally under pressure.
“He has a tendency to have such a high level of expectation for his game, that can kind of prohibit him from looking beyond a simple mistake,” he said. “He’s been really good about doing that lately. Golf is very hard, and it’s really about managing your mistakes. Perfection is basically unattainable in golf. If he stays patient, understands that, picks his spots on when to be aggressive, is aggressive in that moment, and then plays it smart during moments he shouldn’t be aggressive, I think he’s got an incredible chance to win this thing.”
One of the biggest competitors for Pinili this weekend could be someone in the same household.
Leandro Pinili, a sophomore, finished in a tie for ninth last year at the LPD2 Tournament, and definitely helps push Lorenzo to greater heights in the game.
“We share a lot of passion with the game together, and sometimes it gets a little too competitive just because he wants to beat me and I can’t let him beat me,” Lorenzo said. “It’s really nice having someone besides me who understands the side of golf that I understand. It’s also really fun being able to play with my brother and compete with him. I really love it, and that’s one of the biggest things I’m going to miss about Brother Rice golf.”
And no doubt, Brother Rice will definitely miss Lorenzo Pinili when he finishes his high school career on Saturday at a course he is looking forward to playing because it will require precise shots.
“I think it will separate the best from the rest of the pack,” he said. “You really can’t get away with anything out there.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties
PHOTOS (Top) Brother Rice's Lorenzo Pinili, right, tees off during the 2022 LP Division 1 Finals as Grand Rapids Christian's Adam Workman follows his shot. (Middle) The Warriors celebrate their second-straight team title, including Pinili (standing, third from left) and his younger brother Leandro (standing, fourth from right). Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)
'Unexpected' Medalist Keys D1 Champ
May 29, 2013
By Brandon Veale
Special to Second Half
HOUGHTON – After the Upper Peninsula's infamous spring of 2013, the golfers at Wednesday's U.P. Division 1 Final should have known to expect the unexpected at Portage Lake Golf Course.
Sun-splashed, windless conditions prime for scoring and a medalist who played in his team's No. 3 slot and hadn't broken 80 all season certainly qualified as unexpected.
The man of the hour was Marquette sophomore Scott Frazier, who fired a 1-under-par 71 to earn the medalist honor and lead his team to the overall trophy.
“I'm gonna remember this for a while,” Frazier said after what he described as the best round of his career.
Marquette posted a team total of 308, 15 strokes better than defending champion Houghton, while playing on Houghton’s home course. It is Marquette's first MHSAA title in five years and sixth since competition in nearly-equal divisions began in 2001.
Three over after four holes, Frazier, who started on No. 4, still felt like he had a good round going just a few holes in.
“My putting was unbelievable. I was one-putting everything, and my drives were straight, too,” Frazier said.
He stabilized his round with a big birdie on the par-four ninth hole, then grinded out seven pars and just one bogey over the next eight.
He missed the fairway right on the long, uphill par-5 18th and had his second swing partially obstructed by a tree. All it did was set up a stretch of golf to remember.
“I took out a 3-wood, I took a three-quarters swing, I put it right under a tree branch and I knocked it on (the green) about 20 feet away,” Frazier said.
He rolled in a straight putt for his eagle 3, then wrapped around to birdie both Nos. 1 and 2.
Marquette dropped Frazier's score, a 92, in the Great Northern Conference tournament at Escanaba Country Club last Thursday. But he brought his best game when everything was on the line.
“He's a competitor and a fiery kid,” Marquette coach Ben Smith said. “Part of that turns into frustration sometimes, but he managed it and had a great day.”
Calumet's Reese Lassila, playing with the No. 1's several holes ahead, had no way to know Frazier was catching fire down the stretch.
The 2010 U.P. Final medalist and Copper Country's best golfer all season, he signed for a 74 that was pretty good – but not good enough.
“It's not like I played a bad round of golf. I can't be disappointed,” Lassila, a senior, said.
Lassila started his round with a rollercoaster: bogey on No. 9, par on 10, then birdie-bogey-birdie-bogey.
“I think I really could've heated up on the back nine. But I think every time I made a birdie, I followed it up with a bogey, and it just killed all momentum,” Lassila said.
Lassila finally put two pars together on 18 and 1, then birdied the par-five 2nd hole to get to even-par. But bogeys on No. 5 and his finishing hole, the long par-3 8th, kept him above par for the day. His 74 was still better than his medalist scores in two Western Peninsula Athletic Conference league meets on this course last week.
Key to Marquette's team success was two more golfers in the top five: third-place Jordan Frazier's 76 and just the second 78 of the year from fourth player Mike McGee.
Jordan Frazier, no relation to Scott, arrived from the Las Vegas, Nev., area to Houghton the night before the tournament, but this was no jet-setting trip. Frazier relocated from Nevada to Marquette to play Midget AAA hockey with the Marquette Electricians this season and drove back having not touched a club in four days.
“We won conference and took U.P.'s home to finish off my senior year, which is awesome,” Jordan Frazier said.
The other four Marquette golfers Wednesday were sophomores.
A freshman, Wyatt Liston, led host Houghton to a 323 in an attempt to defend its 2012 championship.
Liston started bogey-double bogey-double, but was even over the next 14 holes for a 78, to tie for fourth individually and all-U.P. honors.
“After the first four (holes), I figured that it can't get much worse, so only good scores from there on,” Liston said.
Sophomore Brendan Longhini scored a 79, one of just seven sub-80 scores on the day.
The other came from Ben Lasecki of third-place Gladstone. The Braves posted a 330. Rival Escanaba was fourth with a 339, followed by Kingsford (348).
After a U.P. prep golf season full of horrors like a Great Northern Conference meet last week played with temperatures in the mid-40s and winds in the low 30s, or a West PAC league schedule during which four meets were rescheduled and two cancelled outright – leading to three meets in three days last week – Wednesday was pleasant enough to put a smile on the faces of even the golfers who turned in a card full of bogeys.
The course was in remarkable shape considering it opened for the season just 15 days ago on May 14, the latest starting date in recorded history for the U.P.'s northernmost 18-hole track.
“(The weather) is awesome for today, but you wish you could've had it a couple other days as well,” Smith said.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marquette's Scott Frazier follows through on his tee shot on the 18th hole at Portage Lake Golf Course during Wednesday's U.P. Division 1 Final. Frazier went on to eagle the hole as part of a 1-under par 71, the medalist score. (Middle) Houghton's Brendan Longhini stares down a putt on the 18th green. He shot a 7-over par 79 for the Gremlins, who finished second to Marquette in the team competition. (Photos by Brandon Veale.)