Beyond the don’t-wake-me-while-I’m-dreaming attitude at the PGA Championship and the slam-dunk ace with Rory McIlroy watching, beyond the back slaps and the ovations, there is something about Michael Block’s magnetic star turn that has touched people like a Christmas carol on a cold December night.
Even Block’s crash landing at Colonial last week didn’t dull the glow.
What Block did at Oak Hill and carried with him to the Charles Schwab Challenge deep in the heart of Texas is golf in its fullest form.
It’s that I-can-fly moment after years of dreaming about it, and all of us have it, whether we’re working in a factory, punching numbers into a computer or selling products to customers. Block’s moment played out on an international stage, framed by television cameras and thousands of fans swept up in a moment almost no one saw coming.
But this chapter in the Michael Block saga is also the quintessential golf story, right down to the double bogey-speckled 81 that he shot in the first round at Colonial.
“I think if you can kind of help keep that perspective and be a little more like Michael Block week to week, it would be a good thing for all of us.”
jordan spieth
In a game that dangles opportunity with every tee time and every tee shot, Block captured the prize. He didn’t win the Wanamaker Trophy – Brooks Koepka beat him to that – but Block showed himself and the rest of us what’s possible in a game that excels at beating us up and beating us down.
To borrow from Brandel Chamblee’s recent social-media post, golf has always been “more about hope than heroes.”
Block managed to unite people – no small feat these days – and a game that is, at least momentarily, fractured. This hasn’t been about the PGA Tour or LIV Golf. It has been about everything else.
“As a player that can (play) a decade out here and think of it as work more than play, you saw how he embraced that entire week, and he's talked about it after as like, you'll look back and think of a couple of weeks in your life, and this may be one of the best ones I've had. It's like, man, we get to do that every week,” Jordan Spieth said.
Block is a 46-year-old working man at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, California. He is a golf professional, not a professional golfer, but his track record of success in southern California and beyond suggests he marries the two distinctly different jobs together like peanut butter and jelly.
Last week at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth was Block’s 26th start on the PGA Tour, effectively a full season worth of tour events on his impressive résumé. But he decided after failing to advance beyond the second stage of tour qualifying school in 2007 that he needed a different career path and his performance at the Colonial was like an ice bath on his heater.
Block will turn 47 next month and had to ask off work to play in the Charles Schwab Challenge and, two weeks later, in the RBC Canadian Open after his story prompted tournament directors to invite him. Arroyo Trabuco is a public course designed by Tom Lehman and a local named Casey O’Callaghan, and O’Neill’s Bar & Grill there is ground zero for the Michael Block fan club.
It’s the kind of place where golf genuinely lives.
Beyond stirring our imaginations, Block’s performance at Oak Hill was a reminder of why the PGA Championship does the right thing by holding spots for 20 of its members. Block is the exception, playing himself into contention, but the reward is qualifying for the championship.
For those who think those 20 spots would be better used going to other tour players, they had opportunities to play their way into the field just like the club pros had to do.
“I just think at its core (it) is what golf’s about. Kind of that ‘any given Sunday’ thing,” said Max Homa, a southern California native who called Block a legend in Golden State golf circles. “You go out there, you play your game, no one can play any defense, and you go show the world how great you are at golf. I think it got people excited to play. I think it got people excited to watch golf, especially him, and that's always going to be a good thing.”
Whether in our jobs or on those days when the game comes easier for us, we can imagine living the dream, and Block showed us what that can be. Though he played it at Oak Hill like Dorothy landing in Oz, Block knows his way around tournament golf and recently suggested on a podcast that if he had Rory McIlroy’s length, he could be as good as anyone.
Then Colonial almost predictably happened. Maybe it was golf karma. Maybe it was the invisible weight that Block carried. It doesn’t matter.
“Just call it golf,” Block said.
Block doesn’t lack confidence, which underpinned his Oak Hill story and will carry him forward. After signing for 81 at Colonial, he said it wouldn’t surprise him if he shot 59 on Friday. He didn’t.
The line between being confident and being cocky is a dangerous one, and Block lives there. It’s why he looked so comfortable doing walk-and-talk interviews, hanging around the leaderboard and being himself. It was magnetic and likely enduring.
Even if Block doesn’t have another good big-stage tournament, he’s forever “that guy,” which is a nice badge to wear.
He is the guy to whom we can point, the working man, who didn’t win the lottery but seized his moment. Block has signed with a marketing agency, his well-publicized $150-an-hour lesson rate is likely to balloon and the logos on his shirt and cap are likely to change. Hopefully, he will not.
“I don’t really know what the future is going to hold whatsoever. I’m not trying to guess what’s going to happen. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing,” said Block, who grew teary-eyed talking about being reunited with his two teenage boys after the Colonial.
“Whatever comes of it comes of it. I’ll enjoy it one way or the other. I’ve got a great life both ways. So, it’s good all the way.”
It’s the ride Block and the rest of us will remember.
As Block said, it’s just golf.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Michael Block celebrates with spectators after hitting a hole-in-one on the 15th hole during the final round of the PGA Championship
Scott Taetsch, PGA of America