Hanson is back in the swing after Open disappointment

The 29-year-old Challenge Tour professional made his Open debut at Hoylake last month.

Playing in front of a large gallery of friends and family who had followed him over the Pennines, he was unable to match their enthusiasm and the grandeur of the moment by qualifying for the weekend.

Hanson subsequently missed the next two cuts on the Challenge Tour, a sequence he puts down to, in part, the draining experience of his first major.

But after getting into last week’s European Tour event in Denmark and making the cut, he feels he is now back to the form of the early summer when he first booked his place in the Open field.

Hanson said: “The Open was a great experience but performance-wise it was not the result I was hoping for. And it had a knock-on effect with the next two weeks.

“But I had a week at home after that and did some work on the areas I needed to work on and I went to Denmark feeling refreshed and in a better frame of mind.”

Hanson turned that positive attitude into four competitive rounds and a tie for 39th in Denmark which yielded a cheque for 9,300 euros – at £7,454 his second biggest payday of the year.

He now arrives for a second taste of top-level action in the Czezh Republic, hoping for another profitable return.

“It was nice to bank a decent cheque last week but more importantly bank some confidence,” said Hanson, who is joined at the Czech Masters by Yorkshire’s European Tour regulars Danny Willett, Simon Dyson, Richard Finch and John Parry.

“And it’s great to get two weeks on the European Tour.

“There’s a big week on the Challenge Tour this week, but you can’t turn down the chance to play on the top circuit.”

Steve Stricker’s slim chance of making the United States Ryder Cup team is gone after the he confirmed he will not play again until December due to injury.

Stricker, 47, had already been chosen as one of captain Tom Watson’s assistants alongside Andy North and Ray Floyd but, after a seventh-placed finish at the US PGA Championship, Watson revealed he had not ruled out handing the 12-time PGA Tour winner a wild card.

That will not be happening now, however, as Stricker has confirmed he is going to “shut it down” for the time being due to back and hip injuries.