Zach Berger Delivers His Best Work Yet After Placing Second in New York State Federation Championships

Zach Berger had a busy week leading up to the New York State Federation Championships at James Baird State Park Golf Course in Pleasant Valley, New York, this past Sunday.

After tying for fifth place, his best finish at the New York State Boys Golf Championships at Mill Creek Golf Club in Churchville on June 9, Berger hopped on a plane to head to another tournament in South Carolina that didn’t wrap up until Friday. After his flight was delayed in Savannah until 11:30 p.m., Berger eventually found a hotel with a vacancy upstate around 2:30 a.m. Because of all of that, Berger took the day off from playing and decided to rest instead. Because of that, he went into the Federation tournament with little to no expectations.

The Westhampton Beach junior wound up placing second among the state’s best high school golfers from public, private and parochial schools, finishing 1-under par 70 in the one day, 18-hole stroke play tournament.

Berger said his finish ranks up there with some of his best to date. The reigning Suffolk County champion had tied for 10th place at last year’s Federation tournament after having made it as an alternate.

“I’d definitely say this is the best I’ve done in my high school career,” Berger said. “The only thing you can do better is first for high school golf in New York, so I’m proud of the work I put in this year. Hopefully, I’ll try to win it all next year.

“Whenever I go to a tournament, it’s to win it. I wouldn’t be playing in it if I didn’t think I had a shot to win it,” he added. “Josh Yan, who won, had a good day. It was going to be tough to beat a 67 after having never seen the course before and not playing a practice round. Overall, I’m happy with how I did and happy with my placement.”

Berger said the tournament was somewhat confusingly run. He wasn’t sure what his tee time was and wasn’t able to go through his typical preround warmup, which could have explained why he started the tournament by bogeying his first two holes.

But as Berger said that didn’t deter him. He just “went with the flow and stayed patient.”

Berger birdied his next two holes to pull himself even. He also birdied 10, but then bogeyed 12 on what he called a tough par 3 hole. In fact, all of the par 3 holes were especially challenging, Berger said.

“There were five par 3s and at least three of them were playing 230 yards,” he said.

Berger bogeyed the par 5 13, but was even through 15 holes, at which point he knew he was somewhere around the leader so he tried to stick to what he was doing. He had what he called an easy par 5 on 16 in which he hit a good drive just into the right rough. He used a 6-iron to create a 33-foot putt, which he tapped in a 3-footer for eagle.

After he bogeyed 17 on what he called a tricky pin placement, he parred 18 to finish out his round.

“I had a few too many bogies, but overall I played solid golf today,” he said.

After a busy finals week, Berger will wrap up his junior year before starting his summer schedule of golf, which will include more traveling. He’ll be in Indiana next week, then head to another tournament in Memphis.

“I’m looking forward to some good tournaments and hopefully some good golf,” he said.