Nov. 19, 2003
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech head golf coach Bruce Heppler announced Wednesday the signing of three high school players, all ranked among the top 55 junior golfers in the nation, to letters-of-intent during the early signing period.
Adam Cohan of Wayne, Pa., ranked 19th nationally by the National Junior Golf Scoreboard, David Dragoo of Scottsdale, Ariz., ranked 40th, and Taylor Hall of LaGrange, Ga., No. 55, all signed during the past week and will enroll as freshmen at Tech next August.
Heppler said that his recruiting goal was to boost the depth of the Yellow Jackets’ program, which has no seniors and is currently ranked No. 5 in the nation by Golfweek magazine.
“It’s good to be able to add three players of this caliber when we don’t have any seniors,” said Heppler. “We’ve gotten real small the last two years. We’ve tried to do it with six a year ago, and six this year. It was a cause-and-effect thing of losing a bunch of good players three years in a row, and not being able to find the number of guys who to do things the way we do them.
“So we’re thrilled about all three of these guys and where it puts us depth-wise over the next couple of years.”
Cohan, also ranked No. 12 in the latest Golfweek boys rankings, earned all-America honors from the American Junior Golf Association this year. He finished sixth at the HP Boys Junior Championship and qualified for match play at both the U.S. Public Links and the U.S. Junior Amateur championships. He also won the Pennsylvania State High School championship in 2002 and qualified for the U.S. Public Links in 2001.
Dragoo, one of six players representing the United States in the 2003 World Junior Team Championships in Fiji, posted 11 top-10 national tournament finishes in 2003 and is the No. 1-ranked player in Arizona. He won once in 2003 on the International Junior Golf Tour (IJGT) and twice in 2002, while also winning the Arizona State 5A conference championship and reaching the semi-finals of the Pikes Peak Amateur.
Hall, the Georgia state AAA runner-up in 2003, was the medallist in the 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur also reached the quarterfinals of that event n 2001. He was a member of the 2002 U.S. Junior Ryder Cup team, was named Georgia State Junior Player of the Year in 2001 and also won the PGA Junior Championship in 2001.
“They’re all very competitive,” Heppler added. “They’ve all taken care of their school work to get ready to come here. All three fit in to the way we do things. Some of them are coming a long way to go to school here.”
