The school year ended nearly two months ago for Jesse Speirs of Bangor, but he still feels like he is in learning mode as he makes his golf rounds this summer.

“I try to learn something every time,” said Speirs, who just finished his junior year at the University of Mississippi.

Speirs will try to use all he has learned when the 89th Maine Amateur Golf Championship begins today at Biddeford-Saco Country Club in Saco. The 54-hole medal-play event continues through Thursday with a cut to the low 40 and ties after Wednesday’s round.

Speirs played a practice round at 6,365-yard, par-71 Biddeford-Saco on Monday and has a plan in mind as he seeks to add the state’s top amateur trophy to a collection that includes two Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf Tournament titles and a runner-up finish in the Greater Bangor Open.

“I plan on hitting a lot of 4-irons and 5-irons off the tee,” he said. “When I played today, I only hit driver two times.

“Four-iron and 5-iron takes a lot of trouble out of play and still leaves me about 130 yards in. That makes it a lot easier.”

One area has been receiving the bulk of his practice time lately.

“I focus more on my short game,” said Speirs. “Then I work on getting comfortable out on the course with what I’ve been working on in practice. That goes for anybody that plays golf – or any sport, for that matter.”

The rest of his game is OK, he said.

“My swing is pretty much where I want it to be,” Speirs said. “Everything is coming around. I’ve just got to keep putting in the work.”

Even if it doesn’t sound like work in the traditional sense, he has been busy.

“I played in the North-South Amateur last week. I made it through the 36-hole qualifying into the top 64, but I lost in the first round [of match play],” he said.

He played in three other tournaments before that, the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pa., the Monroe Invitational in Phippsburg, N.Y., and the Northeast Amateur in Wannamoissett, R.I.

His results were mediocre, he said.

“It was a mixture of different things” that accounted for that, said Speirs. “I got in a stretch of bad weeks for these tournament.”

That was after an up-and-down year at Ole Miss.

“I came close to winning a couple of tournaments [in the fall],” said Speirs, who was named to the All-Southeastern Conference second team. “When we went on break, I put the clubs away. When I came back in the spring, I was kind of struggling.”

He’s hoping that he might have put that behind him now.

“I learned a lot in the fall about what I can do,” he said.

He faces some stiff competition in the Amateur’s 126-player field.

Defending champion Eric Higgins of Kennebunk will be in the first threesome teeing off at 7:30 a.m., along with Joe Alvarez of Hampden, who won the Whited Ford Paul Bunyan Amateur last month.

“I played with Gary Manoogian, Joe Alvarez and Vance Gray [on Monday],” said Speirs. “We had a little match and it came out even. It was Gary and I against Joe and Vance. We won the front 1 up, and they won the back 1 up, so it came out even.”

Also providing formidable opposition will be two-time Maine Amateur champ Ricky Jones of Thomaston, runner-up to Alvarez in the Bunyan, and 13-time Amateur winner Mark Plummer of Manchester.

dbarber@bangordailynews.net

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