‘Life Is Going to Be Not Quite the Same:’ Awestruck Michael Block Ready for New Beginning
ROCHESTER, NY – First he made the cut at the 2023 PGA Championship as a 46-year-old club pro. Then he fired three consecutive rounds of even-par 70 at Oak Hill Country Club—one of which included a dead shank. Next he enjoyed a dream Sunday pairing: Rory McIlroy. It seemed like life couldn’t get any better for Michael Block in Rochester.
But then it did.
On the 15th hole, Block stood at 2 over par for the tournament, and he didn’t like that at all.
“I hate being over par,” Block said. “That's my deal, I hate being over par.”
Block stepped up to the 151-yard par 3 thinking 8-iron. But it would be a hard 8, and all day long his irons were drifting left when he stepped on them. So he pulled out a 7-iron and went for a flightier shot, a comfort swing. All he thought he needed was 167 yards to end up pin high.
“So I hit it, and it's just right at it, but I can't say it…and all of a sudden it disappears, whatever. I'm like, cool. I'm like, thanks, guys. Rory is walking down the pathway 20 yards away from me and turns around and starts walking back towards me with his arms open to give me a hug. And he goes, you made it.
“I go, what? I'm like, seriously? He's like, ‘yeah, you did,’” Block said.
At the 1989 U.S. Open at Oak Hill, four players made an ace during the same round, with the same club and on the same hole. If it weren’t for newspaper clips, players accounts, eyewitnesses and lingering pieces of memorabilia, no one would have believed that the Four Aces were real: They were never captured on TV and the par-3 6th hole doesn’t even exist anymore.
On Sunday, history showed a flash of repeating itself at Oak Hill. If it weren’t for thousands of erupting spectators, iPhones, and CBS cameras, Block’s slam-dunk hole in one on the 69th hole of a major championship would have been laugh-in-your-face material.
But the shot was real, even if Block and his caddie, John Jackson, were so shocked that they caught themselves literally pinching each other walking down the fairway.
“It’s all surreal at the moment,” Jackson said. “We said that actually a number of times walking down the fairway. Either a dream or a movie, we’re getting punk’d. I don’t even know what’s happening.”
Jackson, a full-time caddie at Pebble Beach, figured out his weekly earnings by doing some quick math on the calculator app on his phone, while Block was busy posing for photos during the 18th hole trophy ceremony alongside the champion, Brooks Koepka.
“That’ll do,” Jackson said, eyes widening at the undisclosed percentage he’ll receive of Block’s $288,333 paycheck. “I probably won’t have student loans next week. I wonder where I’m going to go. I’m supposed to go to Italy in September, so that’ll make that a little bit cheaper.”
If the 2023 PGA Championship gave Jackson’s future a meaningful boost, it absolutely rocked Block’s world.
On the 18th hole, Block made an up-and-down for the books from 30 yards short of the green in the left rough on a steep side-hill. He holed his eight-foot par putt for a final-round 71, a score that secured a tie for 15th place. When the crowd went berserk, Block had to motion to the 18th grandstand to hush—the No. 3 player in the world still had to putt out.
“We love you too, Rory!” one fan shouted.
Block’s T15 finish was just good enough to guarantee a spot in next year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. But as he stood over that putt, Block didn’t have a clue about where he stood, just as he had done all week long.
“I had no idea. I made sure that I had no idea. I told my caddie, John, at the beginning of the day, I'm not going to look at leaderboards throughout the day, no matter what happens. Good, bad or indifferent, I'm not looking, because in the past, sometimes I got ahead of myself. I started booking rooms at hotels that I've never even qualified for, and it's never worked out well. I no longer get ahead of myself,” Block said.
Block’s up-and-down mattered for next year’s PGA Championship, but that’s not what got him sponsor’s exemptions into two PGA Tour events in the coming weeks—the Charles Schwab Challenge and the RBC Canada.
Sure, Block’s ability to keep up with the best players in the world on a major championship venue helped him, but sponsors look for more than just good golfers – they seek good people. Even better: good people who happen to give world class interviews.
“I'm like the new John Daly, but I don't have a mullet, and I'm not quite as big as him yet. I'm just a club professional; right? I work. I have fun. I have a couple boys 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,” Block said.
“But, yeah, it's been a surreal experience, and I had this weird kind of sensation that life is going to be not quite the same moving forward, but only in a good way, which is cool.”