Another week has come to pass here at Birch Ridge Golf Course and what a week it was. Professional and amateur golfers from all over Alaska were in town for the always popular Wells Fargo Pro-Am. The tournament pairs a professional from one of the many Alaskan golf courses with three amateurs for a team competition. Of course, there are individual awards as well, and again this year Birch Ridge’s own Aaron Dexheimer won the event with a stellar 67 against a very challenging course setup. I’m not going to spend much time, well zero actually, going over who won what and how.

Something just a few weeks ago that seemed completely impossible actually occurred, the temperature had a seven in front of it. Ignoring the last few days it’s been like a tropical heat wave around here. Summer is probably over now, but it was real nice while it lasted wasn’t it?

Another season of junior camps are winding down at Birch Ridge Golf Course. We’ve seen 24 little duffers bloom into 50 from last week’s “Hook a Kid” program to our own Junior Camp this week.

This afternoon we concluded our Birch Ridge Junior Championships and had a nice little assortment of hot dogs, chips and root beer floats for the kids to engulf after their round. Tyler “You Can’t Sink My” Yamada, Parker Pickett, Shane “Future as Bright as The” Sunberg, Emily Sverdrup and Danica “Don’t Call Me Patrick” Schmidt were this year’s champions in their respective age groups. 

We’re almost through the first month of the season already. It’s amazing how quickly time passes during the summer. Although you’d have to make quite an argument to convince me that summer has even started!

Maybe us Alaskans need to redefine what qualifies as summer. Maybe if the weather forecast continuously calls for sun, you know, that orange thing in the sky that theoretically exists, and it’s still cold and overcast every day, that’s summer.

Depressing.