I think it is finally safe to write this post, considering there is currently a foot of snow on the ground.

I can’t be 100 percent sure, however, because more than once I thought that this golf season was going to be done in Minnesota. But then the weather improved, courses re-opened and there was golf to be played.

As someone who has lived most of his life in Minnesota, I still can’t really believe this 2012 golf season. When I teed it up for the first time in state, the calendar read March 11. There was still snow in some of the bunkers that day at Mississippi Dunes, but we were playing golf.

For me, the Minnesota season would last more than eight months. I played my final Minnesota round of the year on Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving. I certainly know plenty of people who played golf into the early days of December, but I was in Phoenix when the final golf balls of 2012 were struck in Minnesota.

I can’t remember ever playing any earlier in Minnesota — and I wasn’t able to get out for those decent few days in January. My club opened earlier than ever before and was open later than anyone could remember. How can you argue with that?

I played 22 different courses in Minnesota/Western Wisconsin in 2012. Five of them were new to me — Tartan Park, White Bear Yacht Club, New Richmond, Northfield and Emerald Greens. I played a number of really good clubs including: North Oaks, Somerby, Hazeltine, Rochester and Windsong Farm. I played Keller on a wonderful fall day just days before it shut down for renovation.

I’m going to go into some more detail of my 2012 in the coming weeks, but it was a good year.

The season was long. While we did have some hot weather, there weren’t reports of clubs losing greens as there has been in the past. The early spring and late fall had to have been beneficial for daily fee courses across the state. And a friend of mine won one of the biggest amateur events in the state.

How can you go wrong with any of that?