In the pantheon of sports legends, Southern California club pro Michael Block lands somewhere between Jeremy Lin and Sidd Finch, with a touch of Shivas Irons mixed in for good measure. He’s real (we think) but does things and says things that imbue in him a deeply mythical quality.
You remember Blockie. He’s the philosopher and life coach disguised as a golfer who, at 46, burst into the sports world’s consciousness at the 2023 PGA Championship. Block’s first dose of virality that week at Oak Hill came when ESPN mic’d him up during the first round, and the pro, exuding stunning cool in front of a national TV audience, described Oak Hill as what might result if Oakmont and Shinnecock had “a baby.” Three days later, he achieved cult-hero status playing in the final round with Rory McIlroy, when Block made an ace on 15 and then delivered a dazzling up-and-down on the 72nd hole to finish 15th.
The Blockie Express was off and chugging, and it hasn’t slowed down much since. Since his breakout week, he has played in two more PGA Championships (this week at Aronmink marks his third) and eight other PGA Tour events; made more corporate appearances than Shaq; and inspired more memes than Charlie Sheen. His fame has led to deals with a slew of companies including, but not limited to, TaylorMade, Malbon Golf, Cisco, Charles Schwab and Raising Cane’s. Not bad for a guy whose day job is straightening out slices on the range at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, Calif.
This year, Block had to earn his way into the PGA Championship the old-fashioned way: by qualifying via the PGA Professional Championship, which was conducted at Bandon Dunes, in Oregon, last month. Block opened 71-70 before 30-mph winds left the players in survival mode in the last two rounds. His closing 78-69 was good enough for a tie for 10th place and a golden ticket to his eighth PGA Championship.
This week, in Philadelphia, Block arrived early. He played Aronomink’s back nine on Sunday followed by the front nine Monday. “I’ve learned a couple ways to do the practice rounds,” he said. “I do nine holes every day starting on Sunday, so I get to see the course twice.” Block’s son, Ethan, is on the bag and has worked closely with his father on tactics. On Thursday, they rose early and marked up their yardage book as a ship’s captain might a nautical chart. “This is such a second-shot golf course, it’s insane,” Block said.
Good thing for Block, because, with a driving-distance average that hangs around 290 yards, he’s not a first-shot kind of guy. In the opening round, Block was grouped with Dustin Johnson and Rasmus Højgaard. “Two absolute bombers,” Block said, and indeed in most fairways he was 50-plus yards behind his playing partners. “I said, ‘Do not try to hang with them. We’re just going to play our own game,’” Block said. “Main thing was get it in the fairway, put it in a spot, on the green or even off the green that would give us an opportunity to still make a par.”
Block made 10 of those along with four birdies on his way to an even-par 70 that was one better than Cameron Young’s tally and four better than McIlroy’s. Even Block’s bad holes — he made bogeys at 4 and 8 and a double at 12 — weren’t that bad, he said. “Even on my bogeys today, I never hit a bad shot,” he said. “They just didn’t end up with our calculations to be in the correct spot, and it is what it is after that.”
Block doesn’t turn lemons into lemonade; he turns them into Cristal. His blinding positivity is one of his superpowers. “You can’t lose confidence over a bad shot, and that’s a really, really important key that I try to teach not only myself, but my students as well,” he said. That confidence can read as cockiness, which some observers have found off-putting. But there’s also another dimension to Block, which has made him an object of endless fascination: a wide-eyed golly-gee-ism, as if he still can’t wrap his head around the rare air in which he finds himself.
Case in point: a bathroom break Block took early in his opening round. “There was no mirror, so I wasn’t looking at myself,” he said. “But I said, ‘You got this. I go, You’re actually pretty good, buddy.’
“And I just kept going. I’m like, ‘I’m with D.J., one of my idols, a guy I looked up to my whole life, and Rasmus, who’s an unbelievable player, he’s like 63 in the world.’ I’m just going, ‘You got this, bud. You got it.’ It’s cool. It’s really cool. It’s kind of fun, to be honest. I’m proud of myself for just grinding it through and having fun with the boys.”
That fun has continued. On Friday, in the first group out, Block shot one over on the front nine and, as of this writing, is one over for the tournament, safely under the projected (albeit early) two-over cut line. He’s doing what he set out to do. As he said Thursday evening, “I feel like I could get out there and shoot another even par, something like that, and put myself in halfway contention going into the weekend, which to be honest is going to be unbelievable.”
Again.
