Michael Dominick second from right putts on No. 18 at Eagle Crest’s Ridge Course in Redmond while playing in Flight 1 of the Pacific Amateur Golf Classic on Thursday afternoon.

REDMOND — For a group with virtually no chance of winning, the folks in the first flight of the Pacific Amateur seemed to be having a good time.

The golfers in Flight 1 are the most skilled players in the 2010 Northwest Dodge Dealers Pacific Amateur Golf Classic. The highest handicap index in the group still boasts a highly respectable 4.5.

In an all-net competition such as the Pac Am, which is open to amateurs with handicaps ranging from scratch or better to 30 or higher, the best players typically are at a disadvantage.

But on a picture-perfect day Thursday at Eagle Crest Resort’s Ridge Course, the top players in the tournament did not seem to mind.

“It’s just fun to play in a competition, even though your chances of winning without any strokes are kind of slim to none,” said Bryan White, a 31-year-old 0.4 handicap from Hillsboro. “But it’s a fun event, and it’s a good way to end the summer.”

The top two golfers from each flight after 54 holes of individual net stroke play advanced to today’s final round at Sunriver Resort’s Crosswater Club. The lowest 18-hole net score at Crosswater is crowned the Pac Am’s overall champion.

Last year’s overall winner — Bill Bienapfl, of Meridian, Idaho, who was then a 28.6 handicap — shot a net 61 at Crosswater Club.

For a scratch golfer to beat Bienapfl last year, he would have had to better the competitive course record at Crosswater: an 8-under-par 64 set by tour pro Brad Bryant at the 2009 Jeld-Wen Tradition.

If Fred Funk could not beat a 64 in four years at The Tradition, even though he won the Champions Tour senior major championship twice at Crosswater, what chance does an amateur have?

Yet, some of the top players keep coming back.

“You see a lot of the same guys,” said Paul Battle, a 42-year-old 0.8 handicap from Puyallup, Wash. “You make friends. It’s kind of cool. You look forward to it every year.”

Battle is playing in his third Pac Am. Like many of the lowest handicaps in the field, he is a veteran of his home state golf association’s amateur tournaments.

For those competitive golfers, the Pac Am offers a bit more fun than the ultracompetitive state amateurs.

“This is much more laid-back here than it is there (in state amateur events),” said Scott Miller, who is a 45-year-old 2.3 handicap from Issaquah, Wash., and a regular in Washington State Golf Association tournaments. “For the most part, everybody you play with here is really very friendly and nice.”

Michael Dominick, a 21-year-old 0.9 handicap from Eureka, Calif., agreed.

Dominick, who advanced to Crosswater, plays college golf for NCAA Division III Wartburg College, a small liberal arts school in Iowa.

And he entered the Pac Am this year for the first time as a final tuneup before heading back to college.

Dominick said he would like to see a gross division at the Pac Am in the future, but he added that he still enjoyed playing in the top flight.

“If I come back next year — and I definitely will if I have the chance — I would like to see a scratch division,” Dominick said. “But you get to play three nice golf courses.

“It’s cool. It’s a little more laid-back.”

White, who is playing in the Pac Am for the third time, said the tournament keeps similarly skilled golfers playing together by having a relatively small number of golfers in each of the event’s 32 flights.

And that keeps the tournament competitive and fair within the various flights, each of which includes some 20 golfers.

“This year we’ve got one guy who is a plus handicap, two or three of us who are scratch, and there is another five, six guys who are 1 handicaps,” White said. “That’s some pretty good golf.

“I’ve played in other events like this where you are paired up with a guy who is a 10 or 12 (handicap), and that can be a distraction, to an extent. But not here. They do a good job of keeping the flights to a manageable size.”

So while the top players have little chance of winning the Pac Am’s overall championship, the tournament offers enough highly skilled players to make winning Flight 1 an achievement in itself.

“When they redo the pairing … you are playing with guys who are all pretty much the same skill level,” Dominick said. “It’s a lot of fun.”