The past two weeks have been an absolute whirlwind for Swampscott’s Christian Emmerich. After winning two big tournaments back-to-back last week, Emmerich carried that momentum into this week’s 100th Massachusetts Junior Amateur Championship at Belmont Country Club, where he made it as far as the semifinals before fatigue got the best of him.
“I played a lot of golf over the past two weeks, and I was playing really well through most of it,” Emmerich said. “But by the time we got to the semifinals of the match play tournament, I was pretty gassed.”
It all started with the Bay State Cup Invitational last week when Emmerich, a member at Kernwood Country Club, carded a three-day total score of two-under 212 (70, 70, 72) to take home the trophy. One day after that victory, Emmerich competed in the Kernwood Club Championship, another three-day affair that ended with another victory.
Emmerich, who’s entering his senior year at St. Mary’s, took the momentum from those victories right into the early rounds of the Mass. Junior Amateur this week. In the opening two rounds of stroke play, Emmerich carded a 72 and a 67, respectively, to earn a No. 3 seed and a berth in the match play bracket.
Things continued on a positive tick for Emmerich in match play. He dispatched opponent Nicholas Cummings (Marlborough Country Club) in the opening round 5-and-4, then scored an even bigger victory in the quarterfinals by beating Peter Bowie (Country Club of Wilbraham) 7-and-6. That win earned Emmerich a trip to the semifinals against David Rogers of Needham Golf Club.
The semifinal match was one to behold, as the two competitors went back and forth almost the entire time. But in the end, Rogers was able to get the win 2-and-1, finally stopping Emmerich’s incredible two-week run.
“It was a great match and I thought I played really well, I just couldn’t get those last couple holes,” Emmerich said.
Emmerich’s younger brother Aidan, who also golfs for St. Mary’s, finished tied for eighth place in the Massachusetts Pre-Junior Amateur, which was also played at Belmont Country Club on August 6-7. The younger Emmerich put up scores of 77 and 76 for a total of 153.
“It’s a pretty cool thing to be able to share these experiences with him and play on the same competitive field with him,” said Emmerich. “It was good to see him play well this week too.”
After his great run of golf over the past two weeks, Emmerich will now take some time off to rest up before the upcoming high school golf season. Emmerich has a lot to live up to this year, as he won the Division 3 individual state championship last year and also helped lead the Spartans to a Division 3 team state championship victory.
“I feel pretty good about this upcoming season,” said Emmerich. “We have a really good team coming back, and obviously Coach (Jay) Fiste is great. I think all this competition over the summer has been really good preparation for me personally, so now I’m going to take a few weeks off to rest up and be fully ready for the season.”