Holy Crap, look who's back...

Well it's been a loooong time. Still playing and playing a lot better. I pretty much gave up on the blog and have been going through the motions in golf, but this is a brand new year. I've had a little bit of success and I'm back full steam. I've opened up a Twitter account (@PaperHogan) and you can follow me via the link on the right hand side of the blog as well. Along with continuing to post detailed results of my competitive rounds and overall progress, I'll also be live tweeting rounds as they occur (not every shot of course). If nothing else, maybe I'll be able to read back on the posts and see just exactly what my tendencies are as I play.

My next 2 posts will cover my latest mini tour round on the Championship Players Tour (www.championshipplayerstour.com) where I tied for 6th and my pre-qualifier attempt for the Waste Management Phoenix Open, both held at LoneTree. Notice how I didn't talk about where I placed in the pre-qual? I wasn't last by a long shot, but I also didn't make it to the Monday qualifier by a long shot. My next mini tour event is tentatively the 24th of this month and I just picked up a new putter, so we'll have some time to get it worked into the bag. Which brings me to an equipment update:

• Driver - Titleist 913 D3 8.5 degree (set to 9.25), Aldila RIP Alpha X 
• 3 Wood - Taylor Made RBZ 15 degree, Aldila RIP Alpha X 
• 2 Hybrid - Taylor Made R11 17 degree, Aldila RIP Alpha S 
• 3-PW - Ping I20, Dynamic Gold X100 
• Wedges - Titleist Vokey SM4, 54 and 60 degree, DG Wedge 
• Putter - Scotty Cameron Studio Select Newport 

I'm waiting for the USGA to post qualifying site information for this years US Open as well. Going to be a fun year, let's go get some...

How I got here

I grew up in Nebraska, where if you were psychotic you could play 7 months a year. I knew a couple of guys who were pretty good sticks, but I knew that if I was going to ever get anywhere, I needed to go where it was warm. A friend of mine had recently moved to Phoenix, so I took a couple of days off work and flew down there to visit. After playing 3 rounds during that December trip of 1995, I was sold. I flew back, resigned from my job, packed what would fit in my car and drove 17 hours straight to Phoenix.

Because I packed only what would fit in my car, I didn't have a bed, so I slept on a sheet on the floor. Lived across the street from a golf course where it was $10 to practice all day long. I was in heaven. I played a few small events and just busted out cold. Spent a lot of money I couldn't afford to and had nothing to show for it. Got a real job and played golf recreationally ever since.

During those years, I still played my Mizuno MP14 blades, switched putters and drivers a few times, but wouldn't relinquish those irons. Thankfully I just bought a set of Titleist 690.CB cavity back forged irons off of Ebay. My God, these things should be illegal they are so easy to hit. How many bad shots did I force upon myself for the sake of pride keeping those old blades?

Never had a real lesson, I've sat down with 2 instructors in my life and didn't want to listen to anything they said. I'm hooked up with an instructor now, more on that later.

Paper Hogan's adventure begins

Ok, first of all I need to give credit where due, the name Paper Hogan is derived from the book Paper Tiger by Tom Coyne. I don't like Tiger, I'm a Ben Hogan man myself, hence the name. Ok, now that that's out of the way...

Welcome to the blog. So here's the deal, waaaaaaaay back in 1996, I moved to Phoenix, AZ to play golf professionally. How did that go? Let's just say it didn't take long to realize that I sucked, and that I needed to get a real job. So I settled into playing some amateur events once a year or so, and fell into the dreaded spiral of corporate scramble outings. "Oh yeah, let's invite Sean, he's pretty good." Hit driver on every hole, run every putt 4 feet by the hole, hadn't hit a bunker shot that counted in years. So here I find myself in 2007 looking back on the last 3 years. How much have I played? I estimate ~12 rounds per year, at least half of which were scrambles. Have a hot day, shoot 78, an off day, shoot 86. Maybe make a birdie or two, but most of the time, no birdies. Eeesh...

Fast forward to June, 2007. My wife and I are talking one night, I'm lamenting how much time I've wasted not playing golf, and she suggests (yep, not me, it was her) that maybe I should give it another run. I laughed at her of course, thought it was funny. Told her how crazy she was, etc. Then I had a trip out of town and found "Tales from Q School" by John Feinstein in the airport book shop. "Hmmm" I thought to myself, "let's read this for grins". Read it cover to cover in one day and had the itch. I bought some books by Bob Rotella and started thinking about some initial goals that would be good to try to accomplish by the end of 2007. Goals I didn't tell anyone about, for fear of them laughing at me.

I surpassed every one of my conceptual goals in the first 3 weeks. Good and bad news. Good news, I'm on track. Bad news, now I actually believe I might be able to do this.

This blog will serve as the official record of my efforts, both good and bad, towards my goal of making it through Q School, 2008. I hope you find the information, stories and efforts entertaining, but most of all, I hope that maybe some of you may actually start to get on my bandwagon and also believe that I can do this. It's always nice to have supporters in your corner. Let's do this!