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).
D4 Champions Make Saturday Count
June 7, 2014
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
BATTLE CREEK – It was better to be the hunter than the hunted Saturday in the MHSAA Division 4 Final at the Bedford Valley Golf Club.
White Pigeon was third after the first round Friday and trailed first-place Charlevoix by seven strokes, but made it up in a big way Saturday to win the second MHSAA title in school history – the first came in 2002 – by nine strokes over the Rayders and Lincoln Alcona.
Meanwhile, the same happened in the battle for individual champion. Junior Joel Sneed of Leland was third after the first day and trailed by four strokes, but shot a 1-over-par 73 to capture the title by four over Sam Wagner of Pentwater and Noah Schneider of Jackson Christian.
Schneider had a three-stroke lead after an opening 70 but ballooned to 81 on Saturday to open the door for Sneed, who grabbed the lead when he chipped in from a bunker on the 11th hole.
“Kudos to Noah,” said Sneed, who was fourth as a freshman and 11th last year as a sophomore. “He started out really, really solid, and I kind of expected him to be nervous at the beginning.
“It’s hard to play with the lead – I’ve been in that position before, but not in the state tournament but other tournaments – and it’s really, really tough to play with a four-shot lead. You feel like with every shot that you lose, ‘Geez, there’s another one gone.’ “I thought I was in a good spot.”
Sneed had solid rounds of 74 on Friday and 73 on Saturday. He had 16 pars and two bogeys on Friday and 13 pars with three bogeys and two birdies Saturday.
White Pigeon was similarly consistent with a 328 on Friday and 326 on Saturday. Its top four players each shot between 76 and 87 both days.
“We’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” White Pigeon coach Mark Olsen said. “The kids have really gone with the strategy of hitting the fairways and the greens – you can keep your score under control doing that - and it worked.
“They deserve the credit and followed the plan to the letter, and good things happened.”
The Chiefs broke it open when Riley Olsen, Andrew Mann and Jordan Olsen each birdied a hole simultaneously on Nos. 14, 15 and 16.
“When I birdied 16, I hit that putt, and I knew it was in,” said Riley Olsen, who led White Pigeon with rounds of 81 and 76 for a 157 total. “I fist-pumped, and our crowd went crazy. It was awesome. It felt great.”
Riley Olsen said he received some solid advice from his older brother Chase, who was on White Pigeon’s runner-up team in 2009.
“The par 5s out here are real tough – they have water and bunkers – so Chase said, ‘Why hit drivers and risk getting yourself in a bunker and then hit a long club and risk it again?’ So I hit hybrids and irons and made a couple of birdies on par 5s too, so it worked out perfect.
“I could not be happier with my game plan.”
Mann, who said he struggled a week earlier in the Regional, was second for the Chiefs with a 158 total after rounds of 76 on Friday and 82 on Saturday.
“I didn’t play very good at the Regional, and I learned a lot from it,” he said. “I wasn’t hitting good shots, so this week I worked really hard during practice, and it turned out great.
“It feels really, really good. I’m so proud of my team. We wanted to win, and we won.”
Freshman Jordan Olsen, younger brother of Riley and son of coach Mark Olsen, added rounds of 84 on Friday and 81 on Saturday for a 165. Like his older brother, he heeded some pre-tournament advice.
“Riley gave me some strategy for different holes and told me just to keep calm and have fun,” Jordan Olsen said. “Riley and I compete against each other in every practice every day, and we strive to beat each other, and that’s how we got better and how we got to where we are today.”
Coach Olsen said the addition of Jordan Olsen to the team this year was instrumental in it becoming a complete team.
“We did not even make it to the Regionals last year,” he said. “When my younger boy Jordan came into high school, that really strengthened the team, but I still didn’t think we would be this caliber of a team because it takes four.
“We had three all-state kids in 2009, but we didn’t have a fourth. This year, we had four that have been playing solid intermittently, and now we have them playing together. You have to have four playing together.”
The fourth this weekend was junior Christian Ryall-Shoup, who had back-to-back rounds of 87 for a 174 total.
“It’s crazy,” Jordan Olsen said. “We weren’t even expected to get to state this year, and the fact that we won is mind-blowing, especially as a freshman.
“We were hoping to get out of Regionals, and we won state.”
After the first round, Charlevoix led with 321, while Auburn Hills Oakland Christian was second with 327 and White Pigeon was third at 328.
“A 328 here is an awesome score, and we bettered it (Saturday),” Mark Olsen said. “This course is going to bite you. If you hit it into the trees, it’s a one- or two-stroke penalty every time. Our guys hit fairway to green, punch out of trouble.
“We have three basic rules: When you’re chipping, you get on the green; if you’re in the sand trap, you get out of the sand trap; if you’re in trouble, you get out of trouble safely and if they do that, they’re back to playing golf.”
White Pigeon went from a first-day score of 328 to 326, while Charlevoix jumped from 321 to 342 and Oakland Christian went from 327 to 341.
Riley Olsen said he wasn’t concerned about his team’s position after the first round.
“It was definitely a calming thing,” he said. “We knew the teams ahead of us were definitely thinking about it – you could tell by their scores. Both teams went 20 shots worse.”
Coach Olsen also was pleased with the position his team was in after the first day.
“We set out with the idea that we’re the hunter, so we started out trying to put the pressure on them and see what happens,” he said. “The other teams didn’t respond very well, and we just kept the gas pedal down, and it just worked out really well.
“I’d rather be the hunter than the hunted; I know that.”
PHOTOS: White Pigeon’s Riley Olsen follows a shot during the second round of the MHSAA Division 4 Final. (Middle) Leland’s Joel Sneed watches an approach on his way to claiming the individual championship. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)