I was going to call this the best day of the year, but clearly things don’t go downhill from here.

While I have already played seven rounds of golf on seven different courses in 2012 (including two in Minnesota), there is always something exciting about the first round of the year at your home course.

My club opened for the season on Wednesday and, not surprisingly, I snuck out of the office a little early. I was on the first tee by 4:20 and played 18 holes in just less than three hours.

Based on my round at The Wilds a few days early and a stop at the club on Tuesday, I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to expect. But even with my higher than normal expectations for the first round of the year, I was still very pleasantly surprised with how good it was.

This wasn’t a soggy first round of year with brown turf everywhere. It was like we skipped April and jumped right to mid-May. Thanks to the warm temperatures of late and Monday night’s rain, there was a lot of color on the golf course. Many years, greens that were covered over the winter stand out so much. This year, they blended in.

Everything had been mowed at least once and the greens rolled at a decent speed. Not summer speed, but still pretty good. The greens were also firm enough that it was sometimes impossible to find a ball mark. There certainly were not big mud craters all over the place.

The turf conditions were really good everywhere. Sure there are a couple of spots on a couple of greens that are going to need a little bit of TLC, but nothing of note. We have one fairway that isn’t great. But that is it.

It was a nice night. I went out as a single and cruised around. I hit it pretty solid. No birdies, but did managed to make consecutive double bogeys on the back nine. It’s funny how back-to-back doubles don’t irritate me as much in March as they do later in the year.

That’s it. Golf season is here. And I’m fired up.