The fifth-grade class at Huntington Elementary has been working toward this beautiful fall morning on the golf course for three years.

They’ve learned how to hold a golf club and how to putt, chip and drive.

They’ve practiced hitting the ball toward a target (a velcro one on the gym wall), about how much force is necessary on the putting green or the fairway, about how to walk, not run, from hole to hole.

And so Friday morning, physical education teacher Chris Johnson managed the chaos, er, golf, at Ager Junior Golf Course while 65 fifth-graders put their lessons into practice.

Johnson began teaching a golf unit three years ago, after Lincoln Public Schools administrators applied for grants to buy clubs for schools to use.

That means the fifth-graders got their first taste of golf in the classroom as third-graders.

“We’ve been working and building up to this day for three years,” he said.

Golf teaches students all sorts of skills, he said, from the etiquette required on a golf course, to training brain and body to maneuver the club with just the right amount of force.

He organized the field trip to expose the students to real golf and show them what’s available in Lincoln.

“I love getting out (to golf) because of the challenge and I just wanted to pass that on to the kids,” he said.

It was no small undertaking, requiring a host of volunteers, from local pros to senior league members.

Among them was Lincoln High School golf coach Sam Sharpe,  who offered advice to four fifth-graders trailing behind him as morning threatened to turn into afternoon.

“This is fun,” said Logan Remaklus. “I want to do it every year.”

This was the first time on a golf course for three of them, though they had experience with miniature golf and the “glow golf” at shopping malls.

But this was something different.

Logan and his golfing partners, Lyrica Baxter, Megyn Clark and Raven Rempe, agreed the hardest part of golf is hitting it hard down the fairway.

But also the most fun.

So they lined up, focused their attention on the little red flag waving in the breeze, hit their balls down the fairway and ran into the fall day to find them.

Because, golf etiquette aside,  some things are just too hard to resist.

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.