Precocious Star Started at Age 6
Fred Allen Meyer
School: West Jessamine High
Grade: 10th
Sport: Golf
Academics: Fred Allen has a 3.8 GPA in advanced classes and volunteers at two charities.
Parents: Alison & Russ
No wonder it seems that high school golfer Fred Allen Meyer was born with a golf club in his hands. He was practically born on a golf course.
The 15-year-old West Jessamine High star is the son of Nicholasville Mayor Russ Meyer, who opened Connemara Golf Course with his brothers in 1991.
Five years later when Fred Allen was born, Russ and his wife Alison still lived in the golf course clubhouse.
Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before Fred Allen picked up the game and started winning tournaments.
He actually played in his first tournament when he was only 6. He was a first-grader. He had barely started school.
In golf you have to keep your opponent’s scorecard. After the first hole, when Fred Allen’s playing partner scored a 6, Fred Allen shot glances back and forth from the scorecard to his mother, obviously unsure of what to do.
Finally, he scooted near his mother and whispered, “Mom, which way does a 6 go?”
And so started the career of one of the area’s top youth golfers.
A year later, Fred Allen won his first tournament, and by the age of 10 he had qualified for the high school team.
As an 11-year-old sixth-grader — when he recorded his first hole-in-one — he played on the West Jessamine team that placed second in the Region and qualified for the State tournament, where Fred Allen shot an 85.
That was the first of his five consecutive appearances in the State tournament where he has improved his finish each year since, placing 37th, 21st, fifth and second this fall.
He shot 73-75 as the runner-up this year and led West Jessamine to a fourth-place team finish.
Through his sophomore year, he has won four high school tournaments.
He also has played in youth tournaments all over the country, including at the famed Pinehurst No. 2 course in North Carolina and the Kiawah Ocean Course in South Carolina, which hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup.
Playing against adults, Fred Allen qualified for the 2010 Kentucky Open, winning a six-way tie with professionals three times his age. He also made the cut in the past two Kentucky Amateur tournaments.
“He is driven by competition,” his father said. “He also wants to measure up against the best.”
He brings the same drive to the classroom where he carries a 3.8 GPA in advanced classes. Because of his year-round commitment to golf, he regularly arrives at school an hour early to work with teachers.
“He has no down time, no TV time,” his mother said. “He manages his time well and is very determined.”
Determined and talented. Sounds like a winning combination.