Tax season is over and so is the Masters, but us Alaskan golfers aren’t quite ready to go. Snow still covers most of what we see, but temperatures are eking toward 50 degrees for the day’s high. Perhaps even more helpful in melting the snow are the long days. The sun rises before seven and sets after nine.

The long days really get us thinking about golf and if you are of the mind to compete within the game, here is your first chance:

May 20 at Palmer Golf Course is the U.S. Open qualifier.

Now, that is one month away and courses aren’t even open yet, so you can imagine the difficulty for an Alaskan golfer trying to prepare for such a challenge. I could go on and on about how our U.S. Open qualifier goes, but I can’t do a better job than the guys from GOLF.com.

After that, there are a couple of fun tournaments in June, followed by our first of two major state events in July. I’ll get in to these events more as we get closer to those dates.

The point to make for now is how limited Alaskan golfers are when it comes to competitive golf. We have to make it count.

Everyone has their own strategies and devices. Some hit indoors on simulators all winter, some not at all, Some take vacations this time of year to warm up their swings for a week or so, but some don’t. I’ve tried every strategy at some point, but this summer I will be nothing more than a 9-to-5 working stiff who hasn’t touched a club since my vacation last October.

I don’t plan to play more than once a week all summer and I don’t plan to hit the range or practice greens at all. I’m currently a 9.9 handicap, having once played to as low as a 1.7. I would say my best golf is long behind me, but I know more about the game than ever. We’ll find out if that is a good thing or bad thing.

Even if I was still a 1.7 handicap and could play in the U.S. Open qualifier, I would pass on the opportunity. To win that 18-hole-event, I would have to shoot even-par 72 at worst. It’s more likely I would need to shoot 67 or so to beat out-of-town pros and top amateurs who often visit for the event.

In the past decade, my best score is a 3-under-par 70 at a par-73 in Idaho. I was on the seventh day of seven straight days of golf. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the best I had ever hit a golf ball, but I had great touch on everything. I judged distances really well on approach shots and my putting and chipping was deadly. I haven’t come near that feeling since. I returned home from vacation, didn’t touch a club for 10 days and went out and shot 82 at Palmer, the same course that will hold the qualifier.

I’m trying to give any interested readers a glimpse into Alaskan golf and help kindred golf nerds understand what level of play we produce up here in the snow.

Now roughly three decades beyond high school, I started out my adult life in full golf dedication mode. I worked at courses and played as much as I could, or I waited tables in the evening so I could play golf in the day. Somewhere in there I shifted to sports writing for a career and now I exist in the daily grind that includes traffic jams, coffee mugs and mechanical pencils.

I would have thought such a schedule would allow for plenty of golf, but I’ve found it doesn’t. This is mostly because I’m in Alaska, I’ll admit, so nine months of the year it doesn’t matter what my schedule is. In the summer, however, I’ve found my new professional life makes it easier to sneak out for the unexpected day off on the course, but tougher to play on a daily basis like I did in my youth. The Monday-through-Friday work schedule means I have to hit the course at the most crowded times and usually I’m tired and hungry at 6 p.m. and don’t feel much like golfing anyway.

Weekends come and I’ve got so many little things to do to get ready for the next week that golf gets in the way. Rounds of golf tend to eat up the whole day, even though they shouldn’t. When I was young, I would tee off at midnight and play 18 in two hours on an empty course. Now it takes three hours to play nine holes on a Monday evening.

I suppose it is starting to sound like a gripe fest, but I promise I am just trying to paint a picture for those who may be interested.

There was a day not too long ago, really, that I would be charged up and ready to practice my tail off on the range and play as many holes as I could squeeze in. My goal this summer is to treat it like any other average American Joe. I’m going to enjoy my rounds of golf to the fullest when I get to play them. I’m going to apply my secret theories and hunches about my game and I am going to see what results.

If I had to predict, it will mostly produce relatively bad golf scores. Still, I’m willing to bet I could have a few shining moments this summer. Along the way, I’ll observe how others do and report what I see.

If you’re not interest in this sort of thing, you have already moved on to some other form of distraction. If you are still reading, you should know, as a basic rule, the ability to shoot consistently around even par in Alaska makes you good enough to contend for state titles.