Category: Uncategorized

I consider myself a lifelong golfer with a vast measure of experience in tournaments and casual rounds alike. Still, I know most people don’t want to read about me, so I’ll title my personal journal entries in such a way that makes them easy to skip.

Those who know me know I was a professional journalist at one time and that gave way to the Alaska Golf Blog, which lasted about five years. That was more than a decade ago, however, and I’ve come to learn the youngsters of today have no idea about all that. This is probably for the best, because it gives me a chance for a fresh start.

Time, or lack of it, killed the golf blog, but I learned a lot from those days. On a personal level, I learned there is only so much time and energy in a day, and I burned up far more than I should have trying to play golf and write about it while trying to manage a real life.

So, my plans going forward are to write on weekends, when I have time to focus and pour some energy into it. Even at that, posts may be short and limited.

I took some time this morning to decide if I will play in the AGA tournaments. I so badly want to, but every time I start to think about it, the idea brings stress. If I think ahead toward a summer with no tournaments, the stress vanishes.

It’s pretty simple: A week of work followed by an entire weekend of golf, followed by another week of work is a grind I’ve lived too many times and it causes neglect in other important areas of my life.

So, I wish all the competitors out there a great summer. I’ll be watching from a distance and doing my best to report results here on my blog. If I can make it out to the events and do some interviews like the old days I will, but I won’t promise such.

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.

June, July and August make up the primary golf season in Alaska. We’ve got about a week to go before it starts. Some courses are open, some are not. The buds have barely started to bloom on the trees, as nighttime temperatures are still in the 30s.

While spring hasn’t been much of one, hope springs in golfers’ hearts as they dream of winning the State Am and earning a spot in the U.S. Amateur. This has become the big prize in recent years, since the Alaska Golf Association has melded into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association.

There are some big management changes in the AGA this year as well, and I recommend you visit the akgolf.org for some of those details.

The biggest tournament changes include making the State Am field smaller and more competitive, while also adding two state junior championships, one for little kids and one for older.

There are even more changes to discuss as summer progresses, and I’m planning to blog about them here as much as possible. I’ll leave it at that for now, with plans to take it one day at a time and see what I’m capable of. One thing is for sure, the season will begin soon and it will be fun and eventful. I’m excited to see how it goes.

In a showdown of two state match play champions, Sam Olson beat Marcus Dolejsi at Palmer Golf Course on Wednesday. Olson never trailed in the match, eventually prevailing 3 up.

This was a rematch of last summer’s battle won by Dolejsi, just before he went on to win the state match play title.

I was unable to witness this latest confrontation, but I did get to shake each player’s hand at the fifth tee as our paths crossed briefly. Dolejsi was one down at the time, because of an overly aggressive birdie putt, he said.

Both players were dressed like pros and playing from the blue tees. Maybe next time I’ll be able to capture some visual proof for the fans.

Until then, I’ll update my rankings to include two players.