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).
Skyline's Favorite Status Stands with 1st Finals Win
By
Tom Lang
Special for MHSAA.com
June 12, 2021
EAST LANSING – Ann Arbor Skyline was ranked No. 1 all season, which meant bringing high expectations into the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Boys Golf Finals as the prohibitive favorite.
And with a lineup that boasted two freshmen, the Eagles delivered at Michigan State’s Forest Akers West.
Skyline recorded a two-day total 594, placing ahead of runner up Detroit Catholic Central (603), plus Traverse City West and Forest Hills Northern (each at 613).
Three of the Eagles’ five players had never been to the Finals before.
“So, they really didn’t understand what all the hype was, which kind of served as a good thing, to not know exactly what they were getting into,” said Skyline head coach Ashley Mantha. “But once they got here, they understood what I was talking about. Fortunately, our (program has) been here before so I could share with the newbies on what to expect.”
Skyline had four players place among the individual top 25 to pace the field. Freshman Ieuan Jones was part of a three-way tie for runner-up to medalist Davis Codd of Brighton, followed by Skyline brothers Vibhav and Vimal Alokam at T13 and T23, respectively, plus Mitchell Strickland at T23.
“Usually we’re the underdogs (coming into a state final), so there a big role reversal today,” Mantha said. “We’ve never been in this situation so how do we prepare for people coming for us, so to speak?
“Each player has like a key phrase I can use to get them in the right head space. We talk about things like how they play with their buddies, or I say ‘Washtenaw,’ just little things that kind of bring them back down to their own game.”
Mantha pointed out how the win was truly a team victory as Skyline counted a normally fifth-player score toward Friday’s first round.
“Luke Richard, my junior, shot his best season score on Friday in the five spot,” she said. Normally he’s in the high 70s but he got a 74 for us, which counted because my No. 1 shot his worst score (on Friday). You can talk about how we should play, but he really played to the moment.”
On the individual side, Brighton’s Codd had spent the last two weeks at an NHL prospects hockey camp in Erie, Pa. – and had to return there immediately Saturday night to play in a game Sunday in front of several NHL pro teams’ scouts.
Yet that didn’t stop the high school golfer from returning to Michigan twice to become co-medalist at his Regional and finish the season at Forest Akers.
And did he ever finish it in style.
Codd came back from 12th place after Friday’s first-round score of 73 to shoot 5-under par 67 on day two (140 total), to win the individual championship.
“Going into this day I had a game plan to go out there and make as many birdies as I could,” Codd said. “The entire day I didn’t look at the leaderboard once. After I walked off that green (No. 13) I kind of figured it out (that I’d won). But I had the same game plan all day, to go and attack the hole.”
Attack he did.
Codd birdied his first four holes (Nos. 14-17), and after some up-and-down play midway through the round, he stepped up to the last hole, the par-5 13th, and ripped a drive down the long, skinny fairway to within wedge length. He made a two-putt birdie to top off his final round as a high school player, who happens to double as a professional hockey player for the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit. Prior to joining the Spirit, he finished Division 1 golf runner-up as a freshman and sixth as a sophomore, and he was able to compete again this golf season because the Spirit have not played in over a year.
Codd out-paced three others who tied for runner-up at 143 – Murphy Kehoe of Traverse City West, first-round leader Jack Zubkus from Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, and Jones of Skyline.
“When you start off with four birdies in a row, that gets the wheels going around and sets a pace,” Codd said. “But I had just a different level of focus on those first four holes, and when that happened, I felt like it was my day, and my day to win, so it was great to start that way.”
Codd said he didn’t get in a practice round for Finals, so he didn’t set any expectations for himself.
“I just went out there to try and enjoy my last two rounds as a high schooler, and it worked out,” he said.
“It’s pretty special to be a part of this Brighton program,” Codd added about the team that took seventh place Saturday. “I was just so fortunate to have my coach, Jimmy Dewling, such a great golf mind and such a great friend, to guide my golf career these last few years and I can’t thank him enough. And I’ve had great teammates over the years. We weren’t the best my first couple of years, but the character in that group set this program on where it’s headed. It’s been a couple of great years in this program.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Ann Arbor Skyline's Vibhav Alokam lines up a putt during Friday's first round. (Middle) Brighton’s Davis Codd connects with one of his putts during Friday’s first round. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)