Every year, close to 10,000 golfers sign up to compete in U.S. Open local qualifying events, with usually 80 or 100 players in each, battling hard and dreaming big. Most of these tournaments are clustered around golf ’s epicenters: Florida, Arizona, California. But one — probably the smallest, coldest, grittiest qualifier in the world — takes place at a municipal golf course in Palmer, Alaska. Annually, just a dozen or so players register for the event. But its size doesn’t diminish its importance — it enhances it.
I went to Alaska in search of those dozen dreamers. But as I wandered America’s largest state, encountering courses and competitors as I traveled north from tiny Homer in south central Alaska, through Soldotna and Anchorage and ultimately to Palmer, I discovered a deeply warm small-town feel and a purer golf ethos than I’d experienced anywhere in the lower 48.
What does the dawn of the golf season look like in the land of the midnight sun? And what does it mean to chase a golf dream in the Frontier State? I started with a small idea and stumbled onto a whole new world. I entered the qualifier, too, which had an ending so perfect I couldn’t have scripted it.