‘I love it here’: Michael Block chases Open place after US PGA heroics
The Block party has rolled into Ayrshire. If Michael has his way, it will continue in Hoylake from Thursday week.
Michael Block is the intriguing name in the final qualifying draw for the Open Championship. He has spent the weekend attempting to suss out the vagaries of the glorious Dundonald Links, where Block will play 36 holes on Tuesday.
“I love it here,” he says. “It’s a perfect venue. I studied all four qualifying courses really closely to make a decision over where I wanted to play. I am glad I chose here; the practice facility is amazing and the course is such a great test of golf. I cannot wait to get out there. I want it to be windy. I want it to be Scotland.
“We can make it a party at Royal Liverpool for sure. I have told everyone I have met in Scotland that on Tuesday night, 8pm at the Dundonald Links bar, I am buying the drinks ... hopefully to celebrate getting to Royal Liverpool.”
Just do not refer to this as some kind of jolly. “I am here to qualify for the Open,” Block says. “That’s 100% why I am here. I am not here to have fun. I am away from my club, away from my family and that is to qualify.”
Block of course has previous for rising to the challenge. While Brooks Koepka won the US PGA Championship at Oak Hill in May, Block won hearts and minds. The 40-something Californian club professional tied for 15th, claiming a hole in one in the company of Rory McIlroy in the process. Block mania changed his life. Michael Jordan was amongst those to get in touch.
“It was really a heartfelt message, not just ‘Great job. MJ’,” Block says. “When I didn’t play well at Colonial, he got in touch again and really built my confidence back up.
“The biggest change is walking down the street and going places where people want to have pictures taken with me. That’s a strange thing to happen out of nowhere in your life, aged 47. All of a sudden, wherever I am I am having that sort of experience and I never thought that would happen to me. It has been fun; Scotland is a golf loving country and everyone here seems to know me.”
As Block referenced, he missed the cut at Colonial having received an invite from the PGA Tour. He lasted just two rounds again at the Canadian Open.
“I think I did 100 interviews at Colonial from Monday to Wednesday and only saw the golf course once,” he says. “The same happened in Canada, I only played once before the tournament. It can’t be coincidence that I didn’t play the first round well but played the second round really well both times. It’s not an excuse, I have just learned that I have to see courses at least twice while also saving these 47-year-old legs.
“It is crazy. I have had a small view of what the bigger guys deal with all the time, before and after rounds. It is amazing what they do and have done for years upon years. I can see how they get tired at certain points and need time off. I have a ton of appreciation for what the top players do.”
Block has spent just a single full week at the Arroyo Trabuco Club since the US PGA. He has been unable to give lessons and has, instead, passed promising junior golfers onto a colleague during a key point of their season. “I had my wife on FaceTime over the weekend, going through payroll,” Block says. “I am still working constantly on my phone. The whole management team there has been amazing, to let me be out there for weeks at a time.”
Block would actually have appeared in Scotland even without May’s theatre. A golf trip to St Andrews, Carnoustie and Dornoch in 2022 lit a flame. “I fell in love and made the decision to come back,” he says. “I have been exempt into final qualifying five times and never come. This is real golf, it is how it should be played and people here love the sport that I love so much. So it was a no brainer to book that flight.
“I ticked off a couple of my lifetime goals at Oak Hill so I had to create some new ones. One of them is playing in the Open. No matter what happens here, I will be coming back next year to try and qualify again.”