Darren Riehl
Rochester, NY – PGA Championship! Sunday PGA Championship! Sunday’s PGA Championship pairing with Rory McIlroy! Let’s go, Michael Block! That was it!! Cinderella was wearing golf shoes. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!
Wait one second.
A volunteer needs a hand.
Block had just finished some vault exercises minutes before his 2 o’clock tee time, and was starting to walk toward one hole here at Oak Hill Country Club when the volunteer was having some trouble with the fair rope — and the fair was running out. Block rushed over, helped him, and smiled.
Forever a professional club. A day earlier, after his third consecutive outing evenly that saw him fall behind just six times heading into the final round, should he fail to make the cut in four previous outings, on a course he was dealing with the world harshly. Best, one part of his day job was described by Block, in Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club In Mission Viejo, California, it’s like this: “You’re dealing with 600 different characters, right? You have a lawyer who tells you how to grow the lawn and you have an accountant who tells you their burgers weren’t cooked properly. So you have to deal with it and know how to handle everyone under the sun” .
So you had to think that this thing was going to end at some point, right? None of the club’s other 20 players have made the cut. Block will eventually disappear too. The story was nice. The two broadcast interviews – two of them. Show off – He’s been wearing the Jordans this week. IPA drink – liked Grapefruit scrub from Ballast Point. But he is 46 years old. And he couldn’t hang out with the gang who play for a living, not study. (And deals with turf and burgers, too.) Not now, at the PGA Championship, at the PGA Championship Sunday, with the PGA Championship Sunday with Rory. The clock struck midnight. game over.
Wait another second!
Let’s first find the Val Block. She’s been Block’s wife for 18 years and she’s been here all week. After her husband finished rope maintenance, she heard hundreds and hundreds shouting at her and her man’s last name as he made his way to the first-hole tee box. roadblock. roadblock. roadblock. It was – in fact she could not find the words. We met at five, which is where we actually met earlier in the week, and she was on her tender toes trying to see her husband. I loved this. She couldn’t stand this. Both were true. The block grabbed the first hole—”Oh, he pegged it [tee] He bogeyed the next five and bogeyed the seventh hole, Val said.
Let’s find Leon Lazur. He is a good friend of Block’s. how good? Dude flew in here Friday night when Block made the cut, and he’s been here all Saturday and Sunday. We got to the third. His boy was here at 10 in the morning, and soon he was signing people’s autographs in the merch tent. Block is entertaining if nothing else. but this? Who knows what that was. His friend played holes 8 through 14 for par.
Let’s find Bob Laskin. He is one of the teaching professionals at Block’s Club. We texted on Saturday when their pro boss arrived for the weekend. We talked on the phone. He sent me a video from O’Neill’s, the grill room at Arroyo Trabuco, of people eating, drinking, and loving whatever their guy was doing. On Sunday, he texted: “I have classes until 4:30 and hope to catch the Brooks playoff.” [Koepka] And then ban. ” wide!
But after that, everyone’s phones wouldn’t stop ringing.
If you saw what happened, those words probably don’t do justice. If you don’t, we apologize. Actually, let’s try this. We’ll keep it short, because others have some ideas.
In round 15 from Bar 3, Block took one swing and no more. His ball didn’t bounce either. Disappointingly, Block didn’t actually see the putt hole in one at 151 yards, but people around the hole started acting strangely. McIlroy asked. Some times. Yes, the ball went into the hole.
Just think of the last sentence! Hey, Rory McIlroy, did you just do a hole-in-one during the PGA Championship on Sunday? amazing!
leon, What happened?? I asked him near the seventeenth green.
“No idea.”
Val, What happened?? She was standing next to Lazure on the 17th and staring at her husband. I asked her next, as Michael was going from one interview to the next.
“Honestly, unreal. Unreal. On top of making it here and doing the cutting and now a hole in one? Talk about the cherry on top, right? I have no words. It’s just — all I can say is, wow. I mean, I keep looking at Heavens, like, What’s going on? Crazy. And the fact that he kept holding it together, it just wasn’t — he got rid of 17 and 18. OK!”
I didn’t spoil it for Lasken’s sake. But I knew what was coming.
“Holeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Hahahahahahaha! I won’t spoil it for you!
“My phone exploded as soon as he did that. You know it’s a big deal when Johnny Bench calls you!!”
Stop
[He sent me a pic of his call log. Yep, at the top, “Johnny Bench.”]
Hahahahaha. Nice – good. Little more important than my call! haha
My phone literally exploded
“Our CEO at the Ranch who owns our course just called a round of drinks for everyone for Michael’s hole-in-one.”
Yes!!!
Block returned to par in his round. He bowled the next 16 holes. Who wouldn’t? He parried 17. He parried 18, after connecting his second putt short and left, then bobbed up and down in front of the crowd. Shot equally over four days. Tied for fifteenth place. Block in the PGA next year though. Then, while he was sipping Casamigos at the club, someone hands him a phone. Hey, would you like to play the Charles Schwab Challenge, next week’s PGA Tour event, on a sponsor exemption. Yes, yes, he did. On CBS, he cried while talking to Amanda Renner.
On the 18th, as they had done in the slot four hours earlier, they chanted his name. roadblock. roadblock. roadblock. But I didn’t think it was because a 46-year-old pro from California was hanging around and beating everyone in this PGA Championship outside of 14 pros who play for a living, though of course she was a part of it.
Everyone else kind of thinks so, too.
In short, Michael Block was what you would look like up there, given the shot. Or maybe what we wish we could be.
At least that’s what I heard.
Why do you think Michael Block’s story has affected people so hard this week?
“I think we’ve been waiting for this,” said Lazure. “I think golf has been waiting for something like that. I mean, he’s a man of the people. I’m still kind of taking it all in at the moment. It’s really emotional, kind of seeing him — I mean, I’ve never seen him cry. Speaking with his wife, you haven’t seen him cry either.” “He’s had the game all these years. He knows it. He showed it this week too, not only to us, but to the world as well. That’s insane.”
“He’s not just a local hero. He’s a people’s hero.”
Why do you think Michael Block’s story has affected people so hard this week?
“This is just something you just dream about,” Val said. “I always believe in him and his swing – but that’s a whole different level – I’m just not ready for that.”
Why do you think Michael Block’s story has affected people so hard this week?
“I believe in the American Dream,” Luskin wrote in a text message Sunday night. “So I’m a little bit biased. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people who have lived the American Dream. It’s clear that people who take the lessons are a successful person in life. There are so many great inspiring stories. I love the 30 for 30 Offers.
“This is an underdog story. This is watching someone’s dream come true. So many people stop dreaming. We just watched a really good person whose dreams come true and he and his family’s lives change forever. This is powerful. If this was a movie, we would all stand up and clap in the theater.”
Block spoke at his press conference about the day. and week. And how he cried twice in his life – even Sunday. And then what. And how people began to notice him.
And I asked him this:
Your story resonated with a lot of people this week. Why do you think so?
“I’m like the new John Daly, but I don’t have mullet, and I’m not quite as big as him yet.”
We laughed. He completed.
“I’m just a professional club, right? I work. I’ve had fun. I have two sons that I love to play golf with. I have a great wife. I have great friends. I live the normal life. I love being at home. I love sitting in my backyard.” My best friend in the world is my dog. I can’t wait to see him. I miss him so much. It’s ridiculous, my little black lab. But, yeah, it was a surreal experience, and I had this weird kind of sense that life wouldn’t be quite the same moving forward, but In a good way only, which is great.”
There were more. A reporter to my left asked me this. I smile.
I’ve said it many times, and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but what’s it like to live every hacker’s dream?
“Yeah, no, I — I’m as normal as it gets, right? It’s something for me where I’m not trying to be inspired. I’m not trying to do anything, and that’s kind of the big deal is I’m not trying to be anyone outside of myself.” I hope people gravitate towards it and appreciate it and be themselves and succeed in achieving their goals as I did this week documenting my big goal this week is to be a professional low club player; right? and maybe that means shooting nine people two days later and beating other guys then Shooting a 25-year-old weekend; right? I could have been happy about that, but I wasn’t.
“I wanted to be a pro for the low club, but I also changed my side and my thoughts about it, and I just said, let’s finish as high as we can. I haven’t looked at any leaderboards, and now that I know I’m 15th and I’ve got $288,000 or something Like, this is crazy, ’cause I play golf and I love the fact that I get to sit in my backyard fire pit with my kids and my dog, and I always tell them that. I always say, ‘You know golf made this? Golf fed you tonight. Golf has a yard.’ “Golf made the home I own in Orange County, California. Golf did it for you guys. I always tell my kids this. Golf did it, and golf did it for me a little more this week.”
Forever the professional club.
People wouldn’t have it any other way.