Listening to Megan Meng discuss pressure on the golf course, one would think they were talking to a three-time U.S. Open champion rather than a sophomore in high school.
“Sometimes, pressure can get to your head. It always ends up being better when you focus on the next shot,” the Hopewell Valley Central High 10th grader said. “If you think ‘Oh I need to birdie this next hole,’ I feel like it puts on a lot more pressure and makes you more nervous than if you just tell yourself, ‘I need to hit a good shot.’ If you hit a good shot, then you worry about your next shot. It’s a step-by-step process. If you get too ambitious it makes you a lot more nervous and there’s more expectations.”
How does one so young gain such wisdom?
“You just figure it out yourself,” she continued. “A lot of the time you’re alone on the course, you talk to yourself, you just see what type of mindset you end up playing better with. Over years of experience it’s just something you’re more used to. I still struggle with it, especially during that match. At first it wasn’t so good. But after a little bit I was like, ‘Oh, just relax. You know what you’re doing.’”
“That match” was the May 6 girls Mercer County Tournament at Princeton Country Club, where Meng took her own advice and won the title after a three-hole playoff with Princeton’s Maddie Zang.
Meng shot a one-under 71 over 18 holes but started horrendously with two bogeys and a 39 on the front nine. As drizzle grew into driving rain on the back nine, she carded a 32 and birdied the final two holes to force a playoff.
“It was just an amazing thing,” Bulldogs coach Bill Russell said. “It was a narrow course, with greens she’s not used to. The rain started when she made the turn. All of a sudden she was putting in pars and birdies. That back nine of hers was just amazing. She went to the playoffs and it was raining even more, and it was just ‘fairway, green, putt. Fairway, green, putt.’”
Meng said it wasn’t a case of being better suited for the rain. She just began getting a feel for the course.
“When I started I wasn’t really feeling it; I wasn’t really warmed up,” she said. “After a bit I got more acclimated, the weather just happened to be getting worse. I don’t think it’s the weather that made me better. I think I was just more warmed up. I’ve been playing in New Jersey weather all my life. I’m used to rain and wind and cold. It’s just part of the game.”
Meng had to face no such weather or playoff pressure 10 days later, when she shot a one-under 71 on a beautiful day in Bridgewater to win the girls NJSIAA Tournament of Champions in regulation at Raritan Valley Country Club. It was her first time on the course, and Meng improved her seventh-place TOC finish from last year.
When it was over, that attitude won out. “Considering I have never played at Raritan Valley Country Club, I think I was able to warm up to the course pretty well,” Meng said. “It means a lot to win TOC, because I get to close my high school season playing an amazing girls event surrounded by a lot of friends and familiar faces. It was a lot of fun, and I’m really thankful for my coach and the whole event.”
Meng’s remarkable run of success on the links began innocently enough, as she would accompany her dad to Mercer County public courses as a little kid growing up in Lawrence (she moved to Hopewell in middle school).
Meng began taking weekly classes at the YMCA’s First Tee program, where students would hit various shots. From there she began tournaments.
“I probably went to the range when I was five,” Meng said. “But I didn’t play a tournament or take it seriously until I was seven.”
She won her first USTA Little Junior event at Forsgate Country Club in Monroe at age 7, but felt it the win was all down to luck. “But I think the fact I won the first time I ever played a tournament made me feel really good about it, so it encouraged me to keep going,” she said.
Meng won what she felt was her first “important” tournament around age 10 or 11, in the U.S. Kids World Championships at Pinehurst, in North Carolina. “We played against a lot of more experienced junior golfers who take it really seriously. It was surprising to win it. A lot of the kids there are from all over the country so it’s a lot more of a big deal,” she said.
Meng joined a Junior League at Royce Brook in Hillsborough at age 11 and enjoyed playing national team events in Arizona one year. It was her first exposure to playing with a team, which is something she has enjoyed since coming to the Bulldogs last year.
“It takes a lot of the pressure off when you know it’s a team sport,” she said. “At the end of the day, if you don’t have the best day ever but you know one of your teammates had a really good day, you feel like you accomplished something that day even if it’s not necessarily your own individual accomplishment.”
In between winning the MCT and TOC, Meng played in a qualifier at Morris County Country Club for the Women’s U.S. Open.
“I didn’t play so well, but it’s all right, it was a good learning experience,” she said. “Overall that field was crazy strong. There were like, over 30 professionals or something. I was just going for the learning experience.”
In assessing her game, Meng feels her iron play and approach shots are her strength, and she needs to keep working on her short game. She works on her swing with PGA pro Mike Mack and her putting with specialist Bill Smittle.
“She has a bunch of strengths but in my opinion her biggest strength is her mind,” Russell said. “She’s mentally so tough. She has that kind of awareness where it’s one shot at a time, she doesn’t let things bother her. Her game is great, she’s straight off the tee, she’s long off the tee. Her shots in the fairways are good, she’s hitting greens in regulations, her putting is automatic. She puts a lot of work into it.”
Just as she does in the classroom, where she Meng has a 4.0 grade point average. She will begin talking to college coaches in June, and hopes to find a school that combines good golf with good academics.
Russell feels whoever gets her is getting a prize in more than just golf. “Megan is a great kid, just like an overall, really cool kid,” he said. “She’s very humble about her golf. You would never know by talking to her how good she actually is.”
But you would by watching her.
Hopewell Valley sophomore golfer Megan Meng.,
