A chance meeting gave Rudy Bagos his first introduction to his future No. 1 player on the East Lyme High School golf team.

Bagos, the high school golf coach and a teacher at East Lyme, ran into Tyler Moore’s father outside the school one day.

“It’s funny, I met his dad walking into school one day,” Bagos said. “He thought I was another teacher. We started talking. When he found out I was the golf coach, he started talking to me about Tyler.

“I was like, ‘that’s awesome’ because I didn’t know what I had coming in. I actually had Tyler Moore in class and I talked to him during freshman PE. Ever since, he’s just taken off since his freshman year.”

Moore, who recently completed an outstanding junior season, earned honors as The Day’s 2024 All-Area Boys’ Golfer of the Year. He owned one of the best differentials in the Eastern Connecticut Conference and also won medalist honors by three strokes with a 74 at the ECC Championship in May while leading the Vikings to the team title.

“I had a pretty disappointing ECC last year,” Moore said. “This year, it definitely felt good to win it. To win the team title, that was even better.”

He’s played at the No. 1 spot for three years for the Vikings. This season, he qualified for the State Open and shot a respectable 77.

While Moore has made strides in his golf game, including being more accurate off the tee, his biggest improvement revolves around his mental approach.

He’s learned to shake off a bad shot.

“That’s the area where I improved the most this year,” Moore said. “I don’t put as much pressure on myself. I’m just going out and having fun is the main thing I try to do when I’m playing, especially in a competitive setting.

“Before, if I had a bad shot and I’d get a bogey or two, it would get to me and I’d try to make it back and try to birdie the next hole and that would lead to more mistakes. This year, I just tried to stick to playing my game throughout the entire round.”

“It took a while for me to finally get to that point.”

Bagos says Moore has the perfect demeanor for golf.

“One thing that I like most about him is you can't tell if he’s shooting 75 or 85,” Bagos said.

It’s even more impressive that Moore’s game has reached this level considering he started playing golf around eighth grade.

Moore picked up the sport during the pandemic, tagging along with his father Jeff.

“It was pretty fun, so I stuck with it,” Moore said. “I liked it pretty much right off the bat. I really started getting into it a couple of months in. It’s a pretty relaxing game. I felt like each time I was going out, I was getting better.”

Now he’s always on the golf course. He’s a member at Lake of Isles and he works at Stonington Country Club. He’ll play some junior tournaments this summer.

Moore isn’t satisfied. He wants to continue to improve and hopefully play in college.

He’d like to play better in the 18-hole state tournament and lower his scores in regular-season matches. His goal is to repeat as ECC champion, which will be challenging with many of the top golfers returning.

He’s proven that he’s capable of putting up impressive scores.

This spring, he recorded a season-best 2-under par in a quad match at Connecticut National. He had two birdies and seven pars by just playing his game.

“When I play like that, it makes it feel like shooting 2-under is easy. It was my best round. Hopefully, I can start doing that often,” Moore said.

Bagos looks forward to seeing what Moore can do next season.

“He’s just so athletic,” Bagos said. “And he’s just driven. He just wants to get better and he loves the game of golf.”

g.keefe@theday.com

The Day’s 2024 All-Area Boys’ Golf Team

Player of the Year - Tyler Moore (East Lyme)

Keiran Boscoe (Wheeler)

Jack Bucko (East Lyme)

Jack Gahrman (Norwich Tech)

Alex Gallardo (Bacon Academy)