The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Block’s party is interrupted by a first-round 81 at Colonial
California club pro Michael Block was living the dream at the PGA Championship. Thursday at Colonial brought him back to reality.
A sensation at Oak Hill when he tied for 15th against the strongest field in golf, Block opened with three straight bogeys and finished with three double bogeys over his last four holes of an 11-over 81 that left him in last place and 19 shots behind Harry Hall in the Charles Schwab Challenge at Fort Worth, Texas.
Block received a sponsor exemption — he has one for the RBC Canadian Open next week, too — after his amazing week at the PGA Championship. He was on “CBS This Morning,” received a text from Michael Jordan and signed with WME Sports.
“I’ve got nothing,” he said to himself after a tee shot on the 13th barely cleared the water and finished on the back left of a green that had a front right pin.
“If you are a golfer, you’ve had the day I’ve had,” Block said after his worst score by seven shots in the four PGA Tour-level events he has played this year. “You understand the facts of where the lies aren’t good and the trees are in your way
every time. Even your good shots are bad, your bad shots are worse.
“It is what it is. I’m going to live with it,” he said. “I thought it was going to happen that third or fourth round last week at Oak Hill, and it never happened. It happened now, and I wasn’t surprised by it, to tell you the truth.”
Hall had a dream start. The PGA Tour rookie from England took only 22 putts, the last one an 8-foot birdie for an 8-under 62 that gave him a three-shot lead over Harris English.
Along with his eight birdies, Hall made par putts of 15 and 30 feet.
Tom Hoge, who played his college golf at TCU and now makes Fort Worth his home, holed out for eagle from the seventh fairway on his way to a 66.
Scottie Scheffler, who returned to No. 1 in the world with his tie for second at the PGA Championship, and defending champion Sam Burns were in the large group at 67. Jordan Spieth didn’t make his lone birdie until the eighth hole and opened with a 72.
Hall changed up his routine this week by playing 36 holes of practice at Colonial — a Monday proam and then nine holes on Tuesday and Wednesday. That helps, along with his putter.
“Maybe that’s the key, just to see a bit more of the course than I have done in the past,” Hall said. “I didn’t do too much different. I kind of just made things a little bit more simple.”
He missed seven greens and played those holes in 1 under, the biggest a chip-in for birdie from about 80 feet on the 12th hole.
“I was really in the moment out there and determined to play some good golf,” Hall said. “The 7 out of 7 scrambles doesn’t really surprise me because that’s the best part of my game, but the way I hit the ball the first two-thirds of that round was pretty special.”
LPGA >> Anna Nordqvist was among 11 players who won matches for the second straight day, only the threetime major champion from Sweden had to work the longest at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play in North Las Vegas.
Nordqvist had her second match go all 18 holes before she held on for a 1-up victory over Lauren Coughlin. Nordqvist never trailed, but she watched a 4-up lead after eight holes shrink to 1 up after the 13th.
They halved the last five holes, leaving Nordqvist in good position — but still not safe — to win her group and advance to the knockout stage on the weekend at Shadow Creek.
The second day of round-robin group play was all about staying alive, and 16 players from the field of 64 already are mathematically eliminated. Xiyu “Janet” Lin was the only top seed in her group to get eliminated, losing another match, this time to Pajaree Anannarukarn.
The tournament attracted only two of the top 10 players in the women’s world ranking, and both suffered setbacks in the second round.
Albane Valenzuela, a runnerup in the U.S. Women’s Amateur four years ago, won four holes in a five-hole stretch around the turn to knock off Lilia Vu, the top seed and winner of the LPGA’S first major this year at the Chevron Championship.
Valenzuela (2-0) faces Lauren Hartlage today for a chance to advance. Hartlage is the lowestranked player in the tournament who has lost both matches before they reached the 17th hole. SENIOR PGA >> Padraig Harrington shot 8-under 64 in the first competitive round at the new Texas headquarters of the PGA of America for a two-shot lead at the Senior PGA Championship in Frisco.
The 51-year-old Irishman finished 7 over at Oak Hill with an 8-over 43 on the front nine Saturday. Par instead on that wayward nine would have meant a top-20 finish, but Harrington didn’t see it that way. “I was at least a week short in preparation,” Harrington said. “I felt I was getting into it last week, but I wasn’t there. I need to do a better job when I’m away from tournaments. So, last week it definitely helped me get where I am today, no doubt about it.”
Japan’s Katsumasa Miyamoto shot 66 and Brazilian Adilson da Silva had a 67 in the Senior PGA debut for both. Phillip Price also shot 67 at PGA Frisco’s Fields Ranch East course, about 35 miles north of Dallas.