Tour Life
This tour pro is having one of the worst weeks ever
Let's get something out of the way first: This is NOT an April Fool's joke. The story we're about to tell was first pointed out a few days ago by the always credible Ryan French, AKA Monday Q Info on Twitter. And yes—unless there's some super elaborate ruse that involves having multiple bio pages set up for this guy—there is actually a pro golfer named Toppie Hogan. Yes, Toppie Hogan.
That is an all-time golf name. It sounds like a character out of "Tin Cup" or "Happy Gilmore." And, in fact, Toppie was a standout hockey player at the University of Arizona before joining the golf team (we realize this story just keeps getting less and less believable). He also recently made a hole-in-one on a par 4 in an Outlaw Tour event. Amazing. But there is nothing happy about what's happened to Toppie this week.
For starters, playing in the qualifying tournament for a spot on the PGA Tour Canada was always going to be stressful. But according to Toppie, he also had the unfortunate timing of being "sick as a dog" and having his car stolen. For the second time in two-and-a-half years.
Wow. Rough timing, indeed.
But it gets even worse. French reported that Toppie cracked his 3-wood on the range ahead of the second round. And, not surprisingly, Toppie won't be earning his card this week. After rounds of 76-79-72, he finds himself 13 shots out of the top 30 (necessary for conditional membership) entering Friday's final round at The Wigwam in Litchfield Park, Ariz.
Fortunately, there was one silver lining from this nightmarish week. Turns out, Toppie's car wasn't actually stolen!
So keep on trucking, Toppie! And we'll be sure to follow along, because this dude might be the most interesting man in golf.