Relaxed Approach does FHN's Schab Good
May 27, 2016
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS -- Spencer Schab has a different approach to the game of golf this season.
The Forest Hills Northern senior isn’t taking things as seriously as in past years.
“I thought of it as, this is my senior year, it’s my last high school season, so why put so much pressure on myself and make it less enjoyable?,” Schab said. “I’m just going to go out and have fun.”
Schab’s change of attitude has served him and his team well.
The Huskies entered this week’s MHSAA District Tournament ranked No. 2 in Division 2, behind only Ottawa-Kent Conference Bronze rival Ada Forest Hills Eastern.
Schab, a two-time Lower Peninsula Division 2 all-state first team selection, has felt the pressure to produce low scores in recent years.
“The last couple years I’ve put too much weight on my shoulders to play well,” Schab said. “I’ve found that when I’m more focused on having a good time, like talking to my playing competitors, I end up playing better. This year has been fun.”
Schab has been a mainstay as the Huskies’ No. 1 golfer, but coach Brian Telzerow said his teammates have helped to ease the tension.
“He’s been the go-to guy so to speak and he’s always played in the No. 1 spot, but the nice thing about this year is all five guys who play can easily be the lowest score of the team,” he said. “Spencer doesn’t feel like he has to be the lowest guy, and so I think he is enjoying the game a little bit more because of that.”
Forest Hills Northern has a talented cast of seniors to accompany Schab in the top four. They include Phil Lodzinski, Chase Lebster and Brian McHale.
Josh Belfer is another senior, along with two freshmen.
The experience of the seniors has sparked the team’s success. It’s a group that has played together the past four years and has a strong bond on and off the course.
“That’s my favorite part about the team,” Schab said. “We’re all such good friends, and it makes the experience so much better for all of us because we’re a tight-knit group. We were friends before we were on the team, and being on the team has only strengthened our friendship.”
Lodzinski said the closeness among the seniors helps drive them to perform their best.
“We’re all best friends, and I think you try a little harder when you have friends on the team because you don’t want to let them down,” he said. “We have a good time together, and that makes it an enjoyable experience overall.”
The seniors played key roles in last year’s third-place finish at the Finals. They’re pulling together once again in an attempt to make a repeat trip.
“These seniors have played with each other for four years,” Telzerow said. “They know each other, they like each other and they have a good connection. They have a sense of we’re doing it for each other, just not for our own accomplishments.”
The ability to stay consistent also has been an important aspect, according to Lodzinski.
“We’ve had at least three or four scores in the 70s every tournament, and that comes with our maturity,” he said. “Compared to our freshman and sophomore years, we’re a lot better at managing ourselves on the course, and it’s led to better scoring and more consistency.”
All of the seniors recently graduated, and Schab said the stresses of the past few months have finally subsided. It has allowed time to focus solely on golf.
“I had a lot of extracurricular activities going on earlier in the year with AP exams and graduation, but it’s time to focus on practice and sharpening up for the postseason,” said Schab, who averaged 38.2 strokes for nine holes during the conference season. “Overall, I’m happy with how well I’m playing considering my shift in focus.”
Telzerow said Schab is starting to peak at the most important time of the spring.
“He’s starting to play better,” he said. “I think he did this last year where he kind of had a lull in the middle of the season and then really came on strong in the postseason. He shot 72 at the post-conference tournament and he’s the kind of guy that can go low very easily.”
The Huskies finished runner-up to conference champion Forest Hills Eastern. The two engaged in a competitive tussle throughout the season, and Telzerow hopes it pays off.
“We knew coming in that both of us had high-caliber players and we would be battling each other constantly,” he said. “And that happened. We both want to do well in Districts and Regionals. Our hope is to finish strong at the state tournament, but we recognize that you have to get there first.”
Districts begin today for the Huskies, and expectations are high. A lofty finish at the Finals would be a fitting ending to outstanding high school careers.
“Our whole goal is to win a state championship,” Lodzinski said. “We’re planning on working hard to make it to state and making a run at the championship.”
Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTO: Forest Hills Northern's Spencer Schab follows through on a swing. (Photo courtesy of Forest Hills Northern yearbook staff.)
Wisconsin Summer Champ Aiming for 2nd MHSAA Finals Title
By
Tom Lang
Special for MHSAA.com
May 25, 2021
Powers North Central junior Bryson Mercier has missed a large portion of the typically-shorter spring golf season in the Upper Peninsula due to attending his Uncle’s retirement after 22 years serving in the U.S. Army.
But Mercier still worked on his golf skills along the way, albeit in entirely different surroundings than his native Upper Peninsula.
“Yeah, it was awesome,” he said about testing out the links at Royal Hawaiian Golf Course. “An amazing course and the views were nothing like you’d ever see here, that’s for sure. Probably the coolest golf course I have ever played on.”
Now back home in the western U.P., Mercier is aspiring to add to his Upper Peninsula Division 3 Finals championship won in 2019 as a freshman, and after COVID-19 forced the cancelation of his 2020 high school season.
He won the Big Bay Invitational this season and took runner-up at both of his other invitationals to date, one a 9-hole co-ed event and shooting a 72 in the other.
Mercier first received a little bit of notice at age 14 when he won a Drive, Chip and Putt local qualifier in Green Bay, Wis. Soon after he won the aforementioned U.P. Division 3 championship with a 74; his next two closest competitors tied with 82s. Then he won the Junior Tour championship of the Upper Peninsula Golf Association (UPGA) in 2019 – and he won it again during the summer of 2020 with a 1-under par 71.
Yet what really lifted Mercier’s golfing profile was earning Junior Player of the Year honors in Wisconsin last summer.
Wisconsin?
That’s the best place for Mercier to compete in multiple junior events within reasonable driving distance. Powers is due south of Marquette and west of Escanaba. He’s played in only one Michigan event ‘below the bridge’ – the GAM Junior Invitational. Most American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) events, where college coaches tend to swarm, are 7-10 hours’ drive away and simply not feasible.
Becoming Wisconsin Junior Player of the Year was not a specific goal – but it’s put him on the radar of college coaches, as it should. Earning any state’s top spot in summer-long accumulated points is no easy feat.
“That’s not what I was looking to do,” Mercier said about Wisconsin Player of the Year, yet he would like to repeat it soon, after his junior year in high school concludes next week. “I set short-term goals for each tournament. I’m not a person that likes to look too much into the future, because if you focus too much on the future, you’re going to miss something that’s happening right now.
“But that was the highlight of my summer.”
Mercier played about a dozen 2020 Wisconsin events and placed in the top 10 every time – a very consistent accomplishment he said he is proud of most. He won the WPGA Players Tour event at Blackwolf Run in a playoff, then posted consecutive victories on the Irish Course at Whistling Straights – the College Showcase with a 74 and then another WPGA Junior Tour event. The very next day he grabbed a fourth win with a personal-best 67 in a WPGA Junior Tour event in Green Bay. He added three runner-up finishes on the Wisconsin tour, which typically features the better high school players in that state.
In Wisconsin he averaged 72.5 strokes over 14 tournament rounds. His second consecutive UPGA win gave him five tournament victories during the summer of 2020.
Mercier grew up a Tiger Woods fan just like his dad, who introduced him to the game with toy clubs as a toddler.
“He never forced golf on me, I just picked up on it myself,” Mercier said.
Mercier has been self-taught ever since. He doesn’t see the need for a swing coach, and who can argue? He said he can feel when something is wrong and typically corrects it fairly quickly. He’s driving the ball further with more regimented workouts, currently averaging 280-85 yards off the tee and climbing (the PGA Tour average at The Players Championship in March was 296 yards).
In more recent years, Mercier relates to different player on the PGA Tour.
“Rory McIlroy is my favorite pro right now,” Mercier said. “His body is a lot more like mine – a shorter, smaller individual.”
Mercier has college scholarship offers from University of Detroit Mercy and Wisconsin-Green Bay. With his high school junior season soon to conclude, he has more opportunities to impress scouts.
He wants to study business. Math is his favorite subject. He said that college golf won’t necessarily lead to a pro stint on Tour, but that it will help in expanding personal and business connections for a successful career.
“Bryson is relentless as a player … he has taken his natural talent to the next level through hard work and a tremendous desire to excel,” said North Central coach Gerald Whitens. “He displays a great attitude in the classroom (3.89 GPA, president of National Honor Society) and along with fellow students and teaching staff. The same work ethic that has made him such a good golfer has made him a strong student.
“His accuracy both off the tee and with mid-irons allow him to play precision golf, while his length has improved with fitness training and confidence. He takes pride in his short game and rarely three-putts or fails to get up and down after a missed green.”
Mercier said his goals are: “Just keep getting better, learn from high school, learn from college. Just take in everything.”
North Central has never been a golf school. Basketball is the main attraction to the youth in that region, where Mercier’s father, Adam, coached the Jets boys varsity to three straight Class D titles from 2015-17 while amassing Michigan’s state record in the sport of 83 consecutive victories.
Bryson was in late elementary and middle school at that time, as a starting point guard, but has dedicated his high school career to golf, where it appears that winning runs in the family.
“I feel like I can help make a difference to maybe get younger people my age to try golf,” he said. “It’s such a good sport for young people to get into because it’s such a life-skills sport. You can learn so much more outside of golf by playing golf, all the life lessons. You can develop great personality traits.
“I think every young person should play golf. You don’t have to be good at golf to play golf and have fun. If you choose basketball, you’re going to have to be really good at it. You don’t have to be amazing at golf to still have fun at the same time.”
That said, Mercier is one amazing golfer – who is also having fun.
PHOTOS: (Top) North Central’s Bryson Mercier keeps his eyes on an approach shot during last summer’s WPGA Junior Championship. (Middle) Mercier follows through on a drive during a round last summer. (Photos by Rob Hernandez/Wisconsin.Golf).