Scott Mizer grew up on a golf course. On the second hole of Jaycees Public Golf Course in Zanesville, to be exact. It’s a venue where he watered greens, sowed lifelong friendships and cultivated the roots of two state championships at Bishop Rosecrans — the only boys state titles in school history.
Mizer was raised in a world revolving around golf. His grandfather helped build Jaycees’s back nine holes before serving as a longtime pro at the course. His father followed suit, also becoming a pro and guiding Mizer’s introduction to the game at age three. He went on to spend entire summer days on the course — mowing in the morning, playing nonstop until dark and tending the tee boxes and greens at night. “Golf was all I knew,” Mizer summarized, “and it was really all I wanted to do.”
Luckily, his community accommodated his competitiveness. The Zanesville District Golf Association (ZDGA) sponsored several junior tournaments every summer, some of them at Jaycees. They pitted Mizer against dozens of other talented pre-teens from throughout the region. Among them was David Dinan — then a diminutive golfer from Zanesville’s other Catholic school, eventually one of Mizer’s most talented teammates. “We beat up on each other during those tournaments,” said Dinan. “But we were also genuinely helping each other, and we just enjoyed being in each other’s company playing our summer pastime.”
By 1985, it was past time for Bishop Rosecrans to create an official boys golf team out of its golf-crazed clientele. Jaycees served as one of the main practice courses once it did. Dave Eppley, also the Bishops’ boys basketball coach at the time, took the reins and rode his young talent to the first of four straight regional titles. “That was a freshman-dominated crew,” Eppley said about the ’85 squad, powered primarily by Mizer and Dinan. “Those guys were the stars.” But glimpses of their inexperience arose in a poor rain-soaked final round at the state tournament. The Bishops finished fourth in the state, “but we had a chance to win it in our very first year,” Eppley said.
If they planted the seeds in ’85, they started harvesting their greatness in ’86. That’s the year Jason Bucci burst onto the scene. He and his brother Slade — the Bishops’ sole senior that season — had grown up playing summer tournaments alongside Dinan and Mizer. Right away, the group’s rapport was apparent. They held onto the previous year’s disappointment and held each other accountable. They developed a system of hand signals to communicate discreetly. They showcased a chemistry, confidence, character and capability that no other boys team in Bishop Rosecrans’s history ever has. “When the weather gets colder and less predictable, when the ball won’t go as far, you have to be ready to play big boy golf,” Eppley professed. “Those guys could play big boy golf whenever the situation called for it.”
The ’86 state tournament called for it several times. Particularly during the final round, which the Bishops began eight strokes behind. Battling the elements once again, they battled back. Jason Bucci chipped in an impressive birdie amid standing water on the second hole. On the back nine, Slade Bucci recorded a crucial par from 150 yards away. He shot 74 that day, the best round of his Bishops career and the second-best round of any Class A golfer at that ’86 state match. “It made him a Rosecrans legend,” Eppley said. Mizer managed his way to a 155 total score (78, 77), the division’s second-best total that weekend. The Bishops won the state championship by two strokes.
Forty years have passed since that plucky group pulled it off. And still, “it’s one of the happiest moments and the best feelings that I’ve ever had,” Dinan declared. He, Jason Bucci and Mizer reached the mountaintop again as seniors, capping an incredible, memorable four-year run with a second state title. “That was such a neat time we were able to share,” Dinan reflected. “We were all good friends and all really close families. We truly grew up together on those golf courses.”
Following those glory days, Mizer and the game grew apart. Like the little-watered fairways of his childhood home course, his enjoyment had dried up. “The last thing I wanted to do was pick up a club,” Mizer, who his high school coach once considered a prodigy, proclaimed. “It was that way for years and years after high school.” His friends continued their careers — Dinan at the University of Akron, Jason Bucci as a walk-on at Ohio State — but Mizer made it to his early 40s before “knocking the dust off the clubs and starting to really play again,” he said.
He could never fully stay away, however. After studying agronomy at Ohio State, he has made a living caring for golf courses throughout central Ohio. His first professional visit was to Vista View, another Zanesville staple those storied Rosecrans teams used as a practice course. Mizer once worked at Zanesville County Club too. These days, driving home, he passes Ohio State’s gray course — the place where he and his childhood pals won two state championships. It’s those types of memories, ones of the joy he experienced as a boy, that have allowed his passion to blossom once again. “Some of the best times I have ever had happened on a golf course with my friends,” Mizer said. “I’m happy with myself for falling back in love with it.”
Never is he happier than when he returns to play at Jaycees. Just like him, even though some elements have changed, its spirit remains. The clubhouse stairs sport the same wood. Familiar freight trains still rush by during his backswing. The greens still roll great. “That’s home,” Mizer said plainly. “When I’m there, I get this sense of calm, this sense of love.” And after years of trying to find himself again within this great game, “I get an overwhelming sense that this is where I’m supposed to be.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Eppley
