Midnight struck for Michael Block shortly after 8 a.m. local time on PGA Championship Thursday.
A year after leaving the PGA Championship at Oak Hill the darling of the golf world, America’s favorite PGA Professional needed only two holes to eject from the second major championship of the golf season.
After starting the day with a bogey on the first, Block needed four chips to get on the green on the par-4 second, carding a quadruple bogey eight that sent him tumbling to the bottom of the leaderboard.
The drama started for Block after his drive on the 493-yard 2nd put him in the left rough, 211 yards from the green. His approach also missed left, leaving him in the rough with a delicate shot over a bunker to a short-sided pin.
Perhaps pressing too much to land his ball close, Block missed the green again with his third shot, hitting the ball well long of the flagstick and into the far rough. Faced with a gnarly lie on his fourth shot, Block knocked his ball across the putting surface and into the bunker he’d just played over. With his fifth shot, he blasted out into the far rough, leaving a dribbler down toward the hole.
Having finally landed his ball on the putting surface, he two-putted for a quadruple-bogey eight that sunk him to 5-over, good for 75th place, or second-to-last in the tournament.
It's moving quickly for Michael Block as he starts his Corebridge Financial leaderboard defense. pic.twitter.com/jbGG487Iy4
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) May 16, 2024
It was a calamitous start to the tournament for Block, the underdog hero of last year’s PGA Championship. In that tournament, Block finished an improbable T15 after an ace on the 15th hole on Sunday, besting names like Rory McIlroy in the process. His finish guaranteed him an exemption into this year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla, where Block happens to own the course record.
Block’s Cinderella showing in 2023 turned him into a social media sensation, earning him sponsors’ exemptions and waves of online love. But the sudden exposure also came with slings and arrows, none more pointed than the mockery Block suffered after an appearance on a podcast in which he described his short game as “world class” and claimed that he’d be “one of the best players in the world” if he had McIlroy’s length. On Thursday morning at Valhalla, Block’s short game was part of his undoing, and he’s now got work to do to make it into the weekend.
