MISQUAH — Loon Ridge held its annual Solstice Scramble on Saturday — eighteen holes under the longest light of the year, a shotgun start at two and play continuing, in theory, until dark, which in late June means nearly ten. The resort reported forty-four golfers across eleven teams, ideal conditions, a full pulled-pork supper afterward, and the now-traditional trouble on the ninth, where a resident flock of Canada geese has established what the pro shop calls “a hazard with opinions.”

The geese, who predate the resort by a good many years and have never recognized its authority, held the ninth green for much of the afternoon, scattering for no group and conceding no putts. “You play around them,” said general manager Renée Fontaine, who has long since stopped fighting it. “It’s their course too. They were here first, they’ll be here after, and frankly they’ve seen better golf than most of what came through Saturday, and they let you know it.” Head pro Greg Mattson confirmed the day’s only special local rule: a ball coming to rest “in goose-occupied territory” may be lifted and dropped “one club length, no penalty, and quickly, for your own sake.”

A foursome of summer residents took the scramble at six under, edging a Misquah team by a stroke — a Misquah team that, Mattson noted, “would’ve won it outright if not for the ninth, which is exactly what every local team says, every single year, about exactly the ninth.” The resort’s longest-day timing is deliberate: the Scramble is the one tournament that can run a full round into the evening and still finish in daylight, and several players lingered on the deck afterward to watch the sun take its time going down over Big Pelican, which is, Fontaine said, “half of what people drive up here to pay for.” Greens fees, she confirmed, are up two dollars for the season. The geese remain free, and intend to stay that way.