‘Why Not?’: Meet Michael Block, the Club Pro Realizing a Dream at PGA Championship
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — “Why Not?”
Those are the two words that are stamped on Michael Block’s golf balls this week in capital letters, and they’re also the two words that have carried him to back-to-back rounds of 70 at the PGA Championship.
The 46-year-old, who works as the head professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, Calif., and hits one bucket of balls per week—at most—sat in a tie for 10th place when he walked off his last hole at Oak Hill Country Club.
He charges $125 for a 45-minute lesson and $500 for a nine-hole session, but now that Block has made his first PGA Championship cut he’ll leave with a check around $25,000 at the very least.
Block has kept his head down for two straight rounds. Hitting fairways, rolling putts and talking to his caddie, John Jackson—a full-time looper at Pebble Beach—about everything besides the golf.
“We’re talking about where we’re going to have dinner, what type of beer we’re going to have after the round,” Jackson says. “I’m definitely going with an IPA.”
That’s why on Friday, following his round, Block mused about drawing pairings with Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy, completely oblivious to the fact that Rahm shot 6 over in his opening round and the chances of the two being paired were slim to none.
“Who knows who I'm paired with, right, tomorrow? If I'm paired with Jon Rahm or Rory or—I have no idea how these guys are doing. I have not looked at the leaderboard. I don't know who is going to make the cut or who I'm going to be paired with,” he said.
Block seemed to be holding in emotions for some time. He came off the course to a horde of media awaiting his comment—mostly seeking explanation for the cold shank he hit on No. 5—but when he discovered his standing against Rahm, it all came pouring out.
“Pretty cool, to say the least. Yeah. I wish you guys could come to my office and hang out with me and come teach with me on the back of the driving range with my students who are out there right now. [choking up] Yeah—sorry. I don't know why that makes me emotional, but it does. Sorry, Jon,” Block said, taking lengthy pauses in between forming words. “Yeah, no, I don't know who I beat, who I didn't beat. I'm going to go out there and do my best and put my head down and play as well as I can for the next two days.”
As a teaching professional, Block might not have the time to grind on the driving range and hit the weight room like the world-class players that he’s going shoulder-to-shoulder with this week, but he’s done this before. Block qualified for his fifth PGA Championship this year by finishing T2 in the 2023 PGA Professional Championship, which he’s played in nine consecutive seasons.
“He’s a stick,” Jackson says. “This isn’t an anomaly. He’s a great player.”
Block also qualified for the 2007 and 2018 U.S. Opens and has teed it up in more than 20 PGA Tour events, with four made cuts. Despite the extensive resume, however, everything seems to be coming to a head for the St. Louis native this week in Rochester.
“He’s got a great life, he’s got a great family, he knows how lucky he is. He’s got a very positive outlook on everything that’s happened. Just taking it in and enjoying every moment. It’s not really outcome-based, we’re just enjoying it and letting it ride and having a good time,” Jackson says.
As mentioned above, Block’s rounds of 70 weren’t necessarily as pretty as he would have liked. On the 5th hole on Friday (his 14th), Block hit a dead shank with his 8-iron that ricocheted off of a tree and “almost killed somebody.” He made a double-bogey 5.
It’s difficult to find the center of a clubface after that kind of error, let alone make four consecutive pars coming in, but that’s exactly what Block did.
The blunder was embarrassing, to say the least, but Block graciously broke down the nightmarish shot after his round, multiple times. When he heard that Dustin Johnson also hit a shank during his round on Friday, it made him “feel a little better.”
Block even gave an anti-shank lesson in the media tent when asked what he’d tell his students back home after such a shot.
“What I like to do is set up to the golf ball and swing and hit the ground on the inside of the golf ball. Like not even hit the ball on practice swings. Just take it, hit inside the golf ball a couple of times to feel that space and to get the hands in tight. If you watch a lot of the best players in the world, their hands are extremely close to their body at the moment of impact. A lot of the worst players in the world, their hands are far away from their body at the moment of impact. That's the difference.
“I'm trying to feel a draw, my hands—I'm trying to get it more out to the right and work it to the left. I overdid it, but it is what it is. I'm going—in my head I'm going, you have got to be kidding me right now. I've been flushing it all day. Last couple days the driving range has been like a video game. I see that, and I'm, like, oh, here it comes (laughing),” Block said.
The answer said it all: Block lives and breathes this game, just like the 28,000 club pros around the country. He spoke to the media just like he’d banter with his assistant pros back in SoCal until sundown. He joked about stocking his pro shop with orange hoodies—his Friday scripting—after the round (they already have every other colorway available).
Block’s name might be sandwiched between the best ball strikers in the world today, but when all is said and done this week, he’ll head back to the Arroyo Trabuco driving range: home.
“I'm one of them,” Block said. “100 percent, I'm just your local club pro.”