Ben Taylor and caddie discuss the next shot during Wednesday’s pro-am at the Golden Nugget Golf Course. (Kirk Meche / Special to the American Press)

Ben Taylor is no Joe Burrow.

And he certainly is no greybeard director of the Lake Charles Housing Authority like the noted local LSU fan by the same name.

But the Korn Ferry Tour golfer by way of merry old London and something called Nova Southeastern University before landing in Baton Rouge, has his own special place in LSU sports lore — and college golf history.

That was back in his “team golf” days, which has always been his favorite take on the frustrating sport.

But he’ll be on his own today, just like the other 155 golfers teeing off in the first round of the inaugural Lake Charles Championship on the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour.

Like all of them, Taylor’s ultimate goal is to take the next step up the PGA Tour.

He has been there, done that — two years on the ultimate tour — and like many of the pros touring the Country Club at the Golden Nugget course the next four days, for him it’s a matter of getting back.

But first go back to 2015, when Taylor forever etched his name in purple-and-gold golf annals.

It was Taylor who sank the clinching putt in the national championship round against Southern Cal for a par on his final hole after taking a 1-up lead in his match with an eagle on No. 17.

He wasn’t quite Heisman Trophy winner Burrow coming home from the 2019 football national championship, but it was the golf equivalent.

When the Tigers’ flight from from Bradenton, Florida, returned to Baton Rouge with the school’s fifth golf national championship, the first in 60 years, Taylor recalled “We had about six police cars with the sirens on and they escorted us back to campus.

“I’d never been escorted by the police in a positive way before. We pulled up to the administration building … we probably had every coach, every faculty member there; must have been 300. Mike the Tiger was there. It was a big deal.

“They call this state Sportsman’s Paradise,” he said. “After going to school there for two years, I can sure believe it.”

He was pretty well ingrained in his adopted state by then, which is to say he couldn’t wait to get to Tiger Stadium on fall Saturday nights to watch a different kind of football than he’d been raise on in England.

“I grew up an Arsenal (Premier League soccer) fan,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine anything bigger than their stadium.

“Then I go to Tiger Stadium for the first time … massive. It’s like #twice# as big. And so loud. Crazy. I fell in love with it and the team.

“It’s the only college team I follow, but that (2019) championship … big Joe Burrow fan.”

He and the football team even crossed paths en route to the golf national championship.

Just before the Southeastern Conference Tournament that year, Taylor dropped by the Five Guys burger joint.

Les Miles, then the head football coach, was in line at the counter and Taylor, never shy, went up and introduced himself.

“I told him I was on the golf team and we were about to go to the SEC Tournament.

“I forget his exact words,” — Miles, of course, was sometimes tough to translate even for those not separated by a common language — “but he was very inspirational, basically telling me to go up there and come back with the trophy.”

Taylor would eventually come back with even more.

A little digging revealed that the golf national championship was more historic than he realized at the time.

It turns out he was, and still is, the lone college golfer to be part of a national championship at both the Division I and II levels.

The latter came at Nova Southeastern, a school of 5,600 students in Davie, Florida, which originally brought him across the Big Pond.

“A lot of people that I looked up to for advice told me that I should transfer and take on the next challenge in Division I,” he said. “I only took one visit. After I visited LSU I told team everybody I knew where I was going.”

Maybe it helped, perhaps, that his coach there, former LSU golfer Chuck Runion, was leaving to be the Tigers’ assistant golf coach. He’s now the women’s head coach.

But from that moment on he probably had a date with another national championship destiny.

“I just love team golf,” he said. “I grew up playing team golf. I played for my country, my continent, I’ve done it all. So playing at a place like LSU, that was something.”

Getting the clinching putt on the national championship was as much about timing as anything. With five golfers head to head in match play, winning his match happened to give LSU a third win.

But, never lacking for confidence, he doesn’t think it was a coincidence that he was playing the No. 3 spot.

“I was very good at match play,” he said of his 3-0 run through the match-play portion of national championship. “We knew that we were going to be the dominant team. I think collectively we all knew that I would win my match.”