June brings joy

I’ve hit one bucket of balls so far, here in Alaska, but I may increase that to two or three this week, as golf season officially starts with June.

The ability to golf on grass brings joy to every golfer’s heart, and with temperatures forecasted as high as 70 this coming week, grass will be growing. The nearly 20 hours of daylight will make it grow fast.

So, let’s pretend you were a competitive-minded golfer living in Anchorage and you were new to the area. You looked up the local Alaska Golf Association events and found a limited list.

The limitations are calendar-based, a three-month window to provide competitive opportunities. I applaud the AGA for the schedule they came up with this year. There are two events in June, the Spring Jackpot and the State Match Play Championship, both to be played at Settlers Bay.

The Jackpot is a popular event that gives golfers a chance to pair up with a partner and use three unique formats over 18 holes to try to secure a trophy and some side cash. It is not regarded as top-notch competition. The focus is more on fun and social interaction, a good way to ring in the new season in the first week of June.

The match-play event is perhaps the toughest competitive event to win, though generally considered the second most important tournament in the state to the State Am. If you were a competitor looking to make a mark, this would be the event to target.

The outside world barely knows this event exists, but the golf insiders greatly respect anyone who wins it. Briggs Winfree won last summer and is on the list to defend his title. He is a left-handed high schooler who practices all winter in the Carolinas. He is a force to be reckoned with.

If you were starting from scratch this spring after nine months off, you would have about three weeks to sharpen your game and be capable of breaking par at Settlers Bay. This not impossible, but it is daunting.

One requirement to entry is posting at least eight scores on Alaskan courses in the past 18 months, so there is a good reason to head out to Settlers and test your skills. After an 18-hole qualifying round, the top 16 players in each division (men, senior men and women) will face off in a match-play, single-elimination bracket. This means, assuming the bracket is full, the champs will play two matches per day on the weekend. This makes for a lot of golf against top-notch players, thereby making it a major grind.

I’m going to stop here and leave July for another post, but I promise July will have a lot more grass and a lot more competitive events. As you may guess, August is the grande finale.