MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Twenty-eight days ago, Michael Block was the biggest rock star in golf.
He was a bigger deal than his playing partner in the final round of the PGA Championship that day, Rory McIlroy.
He was bigger than the player who was about to win the year’s third major championship that day, Brooks Koepka.
The 47-year-old Block, an anonymous everyman club pro from an obscure club that sits in a valley about a mile east of Interstate 5 in Mission Viejo, Calif., was Bruce Springsteen playing Madison Square Garden in a concert that was being broadcast live across the globe as he captivated the audience at Oak Hill Country Club and parts unknown beyond.
Block, the only one of the 20 club professionals to even make the cut in that PGA, was not only en route to finishing in a tie for 15th, but he carded a hole-in-one on the 15th hole that elicited the largest roar heard in major championship golf this year.
A month later, Block is still processing what happened to him that week in Rochester, N.Y., how his life got swept up into a wild ride he never dreamt possible, as if a tornado blew through town and carried him across the country into some sort of fantasyland for a week.
It wasn’t until the morning after the final round when it truly hit him.
“The craziest part was when I woke up on Monday morning weeping in my bed,’’ Block told The Post during a visit with him at his club, Arroyo Trabuco, this week. “That’s when I realized that week was actually real, like, ‘Holy s–t, that actually did happen.’ I woke up in my bed balling. My wife was with me and she was like, ‘Oh my God,’ because she’d never seen me cry before.
“I’m not an emotional guy, but I was suddenly so emotional that week. That struck a nerve for sure that I didn’t even know I had. The release was crazy.’’
Twenty-eight days after that magical final round at Oak Hill, the final round of the U.S. Open is taking place on Sunday at Los Angeles Country Club, and Block is back at his day job while McIlroy, Koepka and many of the same tour pros are competing for the 2023 U.S. Open title.
Block missed getting into the U.S. Open field by two shots in sectional qualifying. Can you imagine the insanity at LACC with him in the field for a home game?
“It’s very disappointing that I’m not there, because I feel like my game’s really good right now where I could be there,’’ Block said. “I’m not saying I could compete to finish 15th again, but I could make-the-cut type thing and see what happens. I’ve played LACC a lot, and I love the golf course. U.S. Opens usually set up pretty good for me, which is firm and fast and Bermuda grass I’m used to.
“So, I’m disappointed I’m not there, but at the same time I’m so beat that I don’t know if I would have had that much game. I am disappointed, but at the same time I’m somewhat relieved I’ve got a couple weeks to try to get back to normal.’’
Normal?
Block’s “normal’’ has changed.
“I’m trying to get back to normal, but at the same time I’m a social guy, so when someone wants to come up and talk to me, I talk them, and the problem is that everyone wants to talk to me,’’ he said. “So, me just trying to walk around is a very difficult thing right now. It’s hard to go anywhere right now. It’s crazy.’’
Block’s feet have barely touched the ground yet, his life forever changed by that magical week at Oak Hill, a week that earned him $288,333 in prize money and so much more.
Since that fateful final round, Block has played in two PGA Tour events he received sponsor’s invites into (the Colonial and the Canadian Open), gotten thousands of text messages and emails, been invited to tournaments in Europe and Australia, been invited to the ESPYs and been signed to corporate deals that have produced appearances almost every day this week during the U.S. Open.
He, too, has found it almost impossible to move about his own club without being stopped every 10 feet by a member wanting to be added to his lesson sheet this summer.
“I’ve barely even been in my office for more than a couple of hours,’’ Block said. “It is absolutely insane how many requests I have on my email and text and Instagram for lessons and all types of requests. A lot of people wanting signed hats for charity events. The crazy part is all the fan mail I got. I’ve got piles of it in my office right now that I can’t get to. I will get back to every single person, but it’s going to be a little bit of time.
“I’m so inundated with things that’s it’s tough to even grasp where I’m at as I try to return everything. I haven’t taught a lesson since the PGA.’’
Block did, however, give me an impromptu 30-minute lesson on the back of the Arroyo Trabuco range during my visit, a session that could possibly change my golf life. He changed my grip and, within only a few swings, had me compressing the golf ball with a slight draw rather than “wiping across’’ it and producing weak fades.
We’ll see if it sticks. Nevertheless, it was a privilege to have had those precious moments with one of the most sought-after people in golf.
During our session, Block even had me take a few swings with the 7-iron he used for his hole-in-one at Oak Hill in that final round. With Block having been offered $50,000 for his well-worn 7-iron, I took great care not to snap it off at the hosel as I took a few lashes with it on the practice range.
A lot of crazy things have happened to Block during and since his sudden PGA Championship stardom.
For one, he was offered some $300,000 by a subscription adult website called My.Club for his services as its golf professional.
He was an invited guest at a U.S. Open party hosted by Discovery Land Company CEO Michael Meldman at his multi-million Beverly Hills mansion — where he rubbed elbows with the likes of Cindy Crawford, Dustin Johnson and wife Paulina Gretzky, and Adam Scott.
The most profound thing to happen to Block? Probably the text messages he’s received from Michael Jordan, whom he’s never met.
“Michael Jordan texted me, and I didn’t even see his original text at first,’’ Block said. “My Nike guy called me at Colonial and said, ‘Dude, did you see that Jordan texted you yesterday?’ I’m like, ‘What? You gotta be kidding me,’ because I had thousands of texts. It took me a half-hour of going through them to find it.’’
Jordan’s first text to Block was about how he will “always be an inspiration’’ to him. After Block missed the cut, Jordan sent him another text talking about how “you never know until you try.’’
“These were like really heartfelt texts,’’ Block said. “They were not, ‘Hey, really great playing, M.J.’ ’’
Block had no idea of the reach his folk-hero status until he went to Texas the week after the PGA and was checking in at Colonial Country Club. When the driver of his courtesy car reached security, rolled down the window and they saw who was in the passenger seat, the guards started screaming, “Block party!’’
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, people know me in Texas,’ ’’ Block said. “Canada was the same thing — the Canadians were all about it. I had no idea. Because I was so in the moment in Rochester, I just thought it was the Rochester people being so nice to me. A lot of people told me what I did at Oak Hill was inspirational, how I was a normal guy out there somehow living his dream out in front of everybody. And, when I look back on it, I was.’’