Michael Harper's road to the first major professional championship of his varied and interesting career seemingly takes as long to describe as it did for the 56-year-old Harper to travel.

Do you have 40 years?

How about a few good travel guides?

It began in Twin Falls, Idaho, where as the No. 1 player on a state high school championship team, Harper qualified for the 1962 U.S. Golf Association Junior Championship in Grosse Point, Mich. He shot the best score in the state qualifying and took home a medal.

"Now I've got two of them," said Harper, who qualified for the 2002 U.S. Senior Open at Caves Valley as the medalist out of Rancho Bernardo Country Club in San Diego. "Forty years later, here I am."

If Jack Kerouac had been a golf junkie, he might have lived Harper's life.

Harper said he turned down a scholarship offer from the University of Houston in 1964 at a time when the school fielded the top golf team in the country. He said he wound up going to college for 12 years, at five different schools, in three countries.

When he tried to walk on the team at the University of Idaho at the age of 26 - this after starting at Tulane, going into the U.S. Navy for four years, and spending time at the University of the Americas in Mexico, Simon Fraser in Canada and Southern Idaho Junior College - Harper was turned down.

"I told them that's OK, I hadn't played golf in about eight years," he recalled. "I didn't play for another couple of years after that."

Harper started playing again after moving to Las Vegas, where he had worked on and off as a craps dealer to help pay for college. Eventually, as his game returned, he started hustling.

Then caddieing.

Then teaching.

These days, Harper supports himself as a teaching professional at Royal Links Golf Club in Las Vegas. He also caddies there on the side.

"There is no schedule, I operate day-to-day," Harper said. "As a caddie, I can help people more with their game. It depends on the price."

A caddie and teaching pro?

"Vegas is a little unique," he said.

He still manages to make a decent living as a golfer. While he has played in a smattering of events on the Buy.com tour, Senior PGA Tour and other mini-tours out West, most of his income is derived by playing more, uh, unofficial events.

"I've never been an amateur, even when I was an amateur," he said.

His friends out in Vegas call him "Harpoon," a play on his name, his game and some other extracurricular activities.

"I hit the ball on a line," he said.

Not that everything in Harper's life has been big-money golf bets and big-time dreams. Four years ago last month, he buried his wife of 25 years, Merlyn, after she lost her fight with breast cancer.

"She was an 8-handicap," Harper said.

He nearly made the 1996 Senior Open, the first year he was eligible, but wound up as first alternate at Canterbury in Cleveland. He tried qualifying for the senior tour that year and reached the final qualifying school.

"I was four shots out of the lead at one point, but I couldn't make any putts," said Harper, who finished 54th.

Harper has spent time caddying on all the major tours, spending time working for PGA Tour pros Skip Kendall, Brian Henninger and recent Kemper Open contender Bob Burns, as well as Cindy Schreyer on the LPGA Tour.

As he finished on the practice tee yesterday, wearing a pair of sneakers to protect a couple of blisters and a sweat-stained shirt, Harper didn't seem fazed by playing against some of the biggest names in golf.

"I beat people out of money, that's what I do," he said.

He was heading to Baltimore-Washington International Airport to pick up his brother, Eddie, who was coming in from Idaho Falls to caddie for him. He wasn't even sure who he was playing with in the first two rounds. "I'll look at it tomorrow," he said.

Sounds like a guy who's been on the Open road for 40 years.