On May 5, 2026, freshman Grayson Meder stepped on the Clinton Country Club course, four days removed from a shaky first half of the Morgan boys golf season. What he didn’t know then was that the coach-mandated break would make all the difference to the next half of the season. All it took was to embody the mind of a goldfish.
Meder shot a 53 against Haddam-Killingworth on the 21st of April, which was the first match of the season, and the team score that match was 194, the worst it would be this season. Eight days later, he shot a 56 against Old Lyme on the 29th of April, his worst score of the season.
Morgan’s head coach of golf, Eric Bergman, noticed these poor performances and made the decision to give Meder and the team a break to refocus on the sport.
Bergman then said, “Meder, early in the season, had some issues with making a few bad shots or bad breaks, and he would let that impact the way he looked at the entire round.”
After that performance against Old Lyme, it would go on and affect Meder, where he said, “With these low scores, it caused me to have a lower confidence level than usual, which would affect my scores even more,” Meder said. “With this, I had to take a break from golf for a bit, which was for five days, and didn’t affect season matches, which would help reset my mindset.”
This reset would go on to help Meder return to stronger performances, playing the best matches of his career for the Morgan golf team.
“With most athletics, it’s often a good idea to take a break to reassess and to reevaluate some of the fundamentals, which would help them come back feeling reinvigorated,” Coach Bergman said. “I think for Meder and Jake Beermunder (captain of the Morgan boys golf team), they put their clubs down, and didn’t think about golf for three, or even four days.”
“Due to this mini break, they came back, and they rediscovered the love of the game and their motivation to win once again,” Coach Bergman added.
After this mini reset, Meder would go on and get lower scores in the next couple of games, repeatedly scoring under 45.
“To keep this composure, I kind of just had the memory of a goldfish and forgot all about those past matches, “ Meder said. “And then that kind of just brought me back in the mindset of going for the win no matter what.”
This composure would earn him his season best and personal record of 39, which was on the 21st of May against Valley, and the last game of the regular season.
“I started hot with multiple pars in a row,” Meder said. “Holes 4, 5, and 6 were difficult with dog legs and small greens. After this, I realized I only needed to put out to shoot under 40. I stepped up to the last tee box and shanked my shot right. From here, I stuck a close chip and sank the putt for par to conclude my best round of the season.”
“I’m incredibly impressed,” Coach Bergman said. “This guy (Meder) came to us with some higher scores. I wasn’t sure what the score would produce. But I think 39 as a freshman is quite commendable, and I think it only gets better.”
“I think Meder’s got some natural talent,” Coach Bergman said. “I think he’s got a spirit of competition that I haven’t seen in years. He’s playing to win. He’s not there to make friends. He makes friends, that’s a nice byproduct, but I see a lot of myself in him, which shows that he’s there to win.”
Bergman sees a lot of himself in Meder’s personality.
“I would get very frustrated because I wanted to win,” Coach Bergman said. “And sometimes I came off as having a bad attitude, but when, in fact, he just really is, can be hard on himself, because he wants the best of himself.”
At this point in the season, Meder has made Shorelines and is going into states as well. “I didn’t really have any high expectations for myself, because this is my first year playing for the high school team,” Meder said. “I thought I was gonna shoot around a 9 over, and right now, I have to be 7, so I think I’m doing good for where I am right now.”
Every team in the Shoreline bracket makes Shorelines, and they compete then to see who wins the tournament. To make it into states, only 16 out of the 32 teams in Shorelines are able to make states, Morgan being one of them. For Morgan, only 5 players get to go, and Meder was one of the five who were called up to compete. The others who were called up were Jake Beermunder, Andrew Randi, Landon Coley, and Liam Totten.
With these scores, such as 39, 40, and 43, Meder has arrived as the 2nd-best freshman in the Shoreline and 4th-best freshman in the state, and overall 62nd out of 221 in the state, which is a huge achievement for a freshman, and he still has 3 more years to go in his high school career.
“I think he’s gonna get stronger. I think he’s gonna get bigger. I think he’s gonna get better. I think he’s gonna become a natural leader for this golf team,” Coach Bergman said.
