At the PGA Championship, club pros can spend their day in the sun

Michael Block, the club professional from Southern California, thrilled the crowd at last year’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York. He could compete with the best tour professionals in the world.

But after making the cut, his first hole did not bode well for a successful weekend.

“I had 25 feet — the easiest two-putt in the world — and I three-putted it,” Block recalled last week. “I started thinking, ‘Oh no, this is how it’s going to go today.’ As we’re walking off the green, Justin Rose puts his arm around me and says, ‘Let’s settle in, Blockie, and have a good day.’ For him to say that?”

Rose, a great champion and longtime Ryder Cup player, was like so many others at last year’s PGA in favor of a magical, if improbable, performance.

Block, 46 at the time, came through and ultimately finished in a tie for 15th, earning him an automatic invitation to this week’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. But more than the highest finish for a country club pro in the modern era of the PGA Championship, he captivated audiences, inspired other club pros and earned the respect of touring pros who saw how well Block, who had run his pro shop a week earlier, could play.

“When Michael Block did what Michael Block did, we all got that inner feeling that it’s doable,” said Matt Dobyns, the head golf professional at Meadow Brook Club in Jericho, N.Y., who is making his sixth PGA Championship start this week. “That’s part of the challenge for us: believing that you can do it. I’ve played with Michael. He’s a great player, but I can play with him.”

“His game makes you think it’s possible,” Dobyns added. “It’s tough when you have a full-time job and golf is just a part of it.”

Every major has a way for non-exempt players to gain entry. The Masters Tournament has a history of inviting major amateurs and international players. The United States Championships and the British Open have qualifying processes where anyone with a certain skill can try to play their way into the tournaments.

For the PGA Championship, that group is the 30,000 members of the PGA of America: the men and women who work in club golf shops. They can enter through sectional tournaments that lead to the PGA Professional Championship, held in late April of this year at the PGA of America’s new headquarters in Frisco, Texas.

Of the almost 3,800 club professionals who participated this year, 312 played on the first day of the championship. The top 20 finishers and those who tied earned an invitation to the PGA Championship.

“It’s an incredible experience for them, and it’s great to see them compete and compete,” said Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer for the PGA of America. Normally, he said, a club pro might make a run on the Thursday or Friday of the tournament, but he couldn’t recall finishing higher than 40th or 50th.

Haigh said one thing that could help club pros compete is the proximity of their professional championship to the major. Before the PGA Championship moved to May a few years ago, there were months, not weeks, between the two. In golf, as in all sports, the hot hand can carry players through.

“Michael played well last year at the PGA Professional Championship, and he played unbelievably well in the PGA Championship,” Haigh said. Block finished tied for second in the pro championship, which landed him in last year’s PGA

What’s remarkable for any club professional playing well at this year’s second major this week is all the other things vying for their attention. Ben Polland, the director of golf at Shooting Star of Jackson Hole, said the timing certainly helps him. He doesn’t play many rounds in the winter — not least because his golf club is turning into a ski club and his pro shop is being converted into a ski chalet.

“I can guarantee you that I played the least golf in that tournament,” said Polland, who won this year’s PGA Professional Championship and is making his fourth start in the PGA Championship. “We hang up the clubs in the fall and go skiing. We hit some balls in the simulator and go on a few member trips, but it’s more low key.”

Polland said he had about a month to prepare for the pro championship. It didn’t show up. He outplayed the field in windy, difficult conditions and won by three shots. His preparation included seven rounds with members, though a couple of them were team matches at Pebble Beach Golf Links. “The swing I found over that period was what I brought to that tournament,” he said.

But what about the distracting jokes with members during the events?

“It’s a switch you can flip,” he said of competition. “Michael Block can chat with anyone, but then he goes into the competition and flips a switch. I will always play my best game in a tournament when I’m focused.”

Dobyns said previous experiences helped him find a way to prepare for this week. On the Mondays of the big week he assesses the course and plans his strategy. He works on his swing on Tuesday. On Wednesday, on the eve of the championship, he simply plays nine holes to simulate what it will be like the next morning.

Even after that routine, this week’s championship is so different from anything these club pros play all year.

“You can’t simulate what it’s like to run into a major,” Dobyns said. “We do well at the pro championship. But it’s nothing like walking through the gates of Valhalla. It’s like going from a Little League park to Fenway [where the Boston Red Sox play].”

For Block, the past year has been unlike anything in his long professional career. “I haven’t taught a single class since that day,” he said. “I used to teach four a day. I was away from home so much that I had to hand my students off to other instructors.”

He thanks the members of his club, Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, for their support and the club’s general manager, Matthew Donovan, for their help with the logistics of these tournaments.

“It’s been a whirlwind year,” he says. “I’ve traveled more in the last 12 months than I did in my first 46 years put together. It’s been crazy, but you know it won’t last forever.”

He admits he feels more pressure this year for the tournament than last year, when few knew who he was. “People think I can do it again,” he said. He just hopes the fans will get behind him again. “I love the crowd. The crowd is a big part of me. I want to hear them cheer.”

Still, Block, who has been a club pro since 2012, said he tells everyone there are fundamental differences that separate touring pros from top club pros: power and consistency.

“You look Scottie Scheffler [the world No. 1] — it’s unreal what he does week after week on really, really tough courses,” Block said. “That’s what separates them from anybody else in the world.”

Dobyns said touring pros were doing everything 5 percent better than the top club pros, which equates to nearly two strokes a round. “It’s the difference between winning and finishing 45th,” he said.

As for this week’s PGA Championship, Block has the same goal as every club pro in the field: make the cut and play through the weekend. “After that,” he said, “we’ll see where everything else falls.”