Larry Moser stepped to the 14th tee, 8-iron in hand, baseball cap pulled low to shade his eyes.

It was 3 p.m., and the sun had already begun the downhill portion of its day. But it hardly felt like fall at all on Tom O'Leary Golf Course on Tuesday. October in Bismarck, and Moser was in shorts.

He let fly, and pulled it a bit to the left, the ball missing the green and rolling downhill. His partner, Bill Cripe, stepped up with a 5-iron and swung.

Moser watched the ball, for Cripe's sake.

It too went left of the par-3 hole, and the men set off with their pitching wedges, not at all disgusted.

"There are a lot of things I could be doing at home," Moser said. "But I figured if you can play golf in October, everything else can wait."

The temperature hit 83 degrees Tuesday, off the record mark of 90, not that anyone was complaining.

The high today is expected to be in the low 80s. Thursday and Friday should see highs in the mid-70s. And it looks good for the pheasant opener, with peak temps Saturday and Sunday in the low to mid 70s, according to the National Weather Service. The lows through Sunday should be in the mid to upper 40s, meteorologist Janine Vining said. Skies will be clear.

Vining said North Dakota is getting air from the Pacific Ocean, and any storm systems are too far north or south to affect the area right now. She expected temperatures to cool off somewhat early next week but to still reach the mid-60s.

Temperatures in the northern Plains are difficult to predict in spring and fall, Vining said, because more weather systems move through more quickly. For example, the high temperature on Oct. 5 of last year was 82. The same day in 2002 was 46.

(Reach Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tspilde@ndonline.com.)