Chadd Cocco will be traveling this year like a retiree. Yet the former Bend High School golf standout is only starting his professional career.

In his second full year as a pro golfer, Cocco will travel in relative luxury this year in a 35-foot recreational vehicle with Mike McRae, his former college roommate and fellow fledgling pro.

But Cocco is not out for a trip to the Grand Canyon.

The RV will help the 24-year-old travel this spring from mini-tour event to mini-tour event — an expensive grind for most golfers — while keeping expenses low.

And the more comfortable mobile digs, borrowed from McRae’s parents, should help Cocco better adjust to the transient life of a golf pro.

“It’s awesome,” Cocco said last week by phone from Palm Springs, Calif., where he is preparing for the upcoming golf season. “(McRae) is a super-good player and it keeps us both pushing hard. I’m trying to beat him and he’s trying to beat me. He has got his friends coming out (to visit) and I’ve got mine. So it’s just a good situation.”

Like most pro golfers his age, Cocco is just learning how to ply his craft on the road.

Last year, he rented an apartment in Palm Springs during the winter and spent the rest of the year based at his parents’ Bend home while traveling around playing in qualifiers for tournaments on the Nationwide Tour, the developmental tour for the PGA Tour.

It was a brutal schedule, during which he would be home for a few days and then would fly to a distant state. Cocco would return home, and after another couple of days he would travel to another qualifier.

“I was home, but I wasn’t actually home,” Cocco said. “I had my suitcase, but I never unpacked. I was just in and out.”

Cocco has played well at times as a professional.

He made it through the qualifier for the 2009 Knoxville Open in Tennessee, marking the second time since turning pro in the summer of 2008 that he had played in a Nationwide tournament.

Like the 2008 Oregon Classic in Eugene, though, Cocco fell short of making the cut in Knoxville — which meant he received no money for his efforts.

He also advanced past the pre-qualifying stage of the PGA Tour’s National Qualifying School late last summer, but he failed to move past Q-School’s first stage during the fall. And he lost in sudden-death playoffs while trying to qualify for two other Nationwide tournaments.

“I think last year was just a big learning experience because it was my first real year as a pro, just to see how good the players are,” Cocco said. “They are all seasoned. And I felt I could play with them, but they were smarter than me on the course as far as how they are playing the game. I am going for shots and making six birdies and making a couple doubles (double-bogeys). And they’re making one bogey and five birdies and beating me by one or two (strokes).”

This year, Cocco’s plan is different.

He will spend the first half of 2010 playing a mini-tour, likely the eGolf Professional Tour based in North Carolina, he said.

Playing the mini-tours, the lowest rung in professional golf, is a tough way to make a living. Golfers pay an entry fee at each tournament and essentially play for a purse made up almost entirely of the field’s entry fees.

Though the winner of an eGolf tournament can take home as much as $35,000, each golfer must pay more than $1,000 each tournament he chooses to play in, according to the tour’s Web site. And that can be pricey if a golfer does not play well.

Cocco is hoping to make a little money playing in such tournaments, but more importantly, he will be gaining valuable competitive experience.

And when the Nationwide hits its West Coast swing later this summer, Cocco plans to play in those qualifiers with a sharper mental game.

“You have to go out and play SO well (to qualify for Nationwide Tour events),” Cocco said. “I went out and shot 66 a couple of times and missed (qualifying) by one (stroke), and it’s like, ‘Wow, I just played a really solid round and I’m basically where I started before that.’

“And if you do that on one of these tours (mini-tours) that’s not cutting after one round, you can actually make the cut and then make some money. And I just want to get as much experience with competitive rounds as I can before Q-School comes in the wintertime.”

Added experience can only help Cocco.

He is a relative newcomer to the sport, not really taking the game seriously until he was a freshman in high school.

That did not stop him from winning the Oregon 4A State Golf Championship his senior season in 2003 and receiving a golf scholarship to Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., where he became one of the top players for the Gaels.

Yet Cocco feels he has some catching up to do with the mental side of his game, something he saw firsthand in Tennessee while playing against veterans.

“I never even thought I would be doing what I am doing,” Cocco said. “My first year of high school, I was the last guy kept (on the golf team). Then I started having fun with all my buddies and then ended up winning the state championship as a senior. Everything has just happened so fast.”

Cocco believes the time is near when he is a regular on the Nationwide Tour.

Already, he feels like he matches up well physically, he said.

“I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now if I didn’t feel like I could play with these guys,” Cocco said. “I played three sports in high school, so I have the athletic ability to do it. But I think my mind, as far as my maturity on the golf course, is a little behind a lot of those guys that are out there.”

Things will be a bit easier this year.

He has a deal with Acushnet Co., manufacturer of brands such as Cobra, Titleist and FootJoy, which provides Cocco with new golf equipment free of charge.

And as unconventional as his new home is, he knows where he is going to live this year, which is uncommon for golfers at such an early stage in their career.

The RV is a big reason why Cocco, despite the travel, seems to be having a little fun.

Now it’s just matter of improving and gaining one last valuable asset.

“The more and more I play with guys that are older than me, it’s all about believing in yourself and having the confidence to be something,” Cocco said. “It’s like pretty much anything in life: If you are not confident, it’s going to be tougher than it should be.”