HOUSTON — The fact that Roger Sloan is one of this week’s local PGA Tour representatives — a Houstonian competing in the Houston Open — is a testament to the power of serendipity.
Sloan grew up in British Columbia, Canada, with little knowledge of the Lone Star state. He had a basic understanding of top programs in Florida and Arizona, and as a junior golfer of negligible accomplishment, his numerous letters to college coaches netted generic rejection responses.
But Sloan never sent a note to the University of Texas-El Paso, simply to leave that door open. A handful of his BC compadres had played for the Miners under coach Rick Todd.
“It was always in the back of my head I would really like to go there because a few of these older guys that I always looked up to were going there,” he said on Tuesday. “I never wanted to write a letter because I didn’t want to get a rejection letter. I just didn’t want to have that final no.”
Through sheer coincidence, Sloan was playing at the Canadian Junior Championship in Vancouver and Todd emerged from the hedges and onto the tee box to watch.
“I knew right away that that was Rick Todd. He watches for a few holes and then takes off,” Sloan explained. “Come to find out what had actually happened was a member at his course that he was a member at knew a kid that was playing in my group and he convinced Rick to come watch this kid, and it was very apparent after a few holes that he was not interested in that kid. He saw a couple shots of mine and he reached out afterward and that’s kind of how it came to be.
“So for me wanting to go to that university and follow in the footsteps of a couple of the older kids that I looked up to … and to have him literally kind of come out of the bushes, it was just a very surreal moment. It was very cool.”
As with so many before him, once Sloan got to Texas, he put down roots and stayed. First, he met his wife at UTEP, and came to love a culture he knew little about before arriving.
“I had never been to Texas. I never really had seen or talked to a Mexican
in my life. I go to El Paso and there’s obviously a large Hispanic culture there, which I mean, which makes El Paso what it is. It’s very family-orientated,” he said. “I really enjoyed my four years in El Paso. Just the Hispanics there, they’re incredible people. It’s a small-town community. But just kind of joking, I’d never had Mexican food before, like I said, never spoken Spanish and I go to El Paso and it’s pretty Spanish-orientated around there.”
Speaking of family-orientated, Sloan and his wife Casey moved to her native Houston a dozen years ago, and have since added two kids.
Roger Sloan hits his approach shot on the ninth hole during the final round of the 2021 Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina. Photo by Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports
Of course, the unexpected detour to UTEP is just one piece of Sloan’s wild ride to playing host at this week’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open.
Halfway through last season, Sloan dropped to 154 in the FedEx Cup standings after missing the cut at the Travelers Championship. But he rallied late in the season — finishing T-16 at the 3M Open, 6th at the Barracuda Championship, and then reached a playoff at the Wyndham Championship — to keep his Tour card.
After missing out on a chance to play in the debut at the renovated Memorial Park last year, Sloan was eager to get into this year’s field.
“I’m excited to play out here. I think this is a really good switch for the tournament to be a little bit more centrally located in Houston,” he said. “You know, you obviously have more of the cultural scene down here in this area, so it highlights Houston for the players, the caddies, and I think you’re going to get a lot more hype and fan interaction throughout the week with the location here.”
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