PGA Championship: Available for lessons from $125, 46-year-old club pro Michael

CNN
 — 

As the golfer in the mustard hoodie left the 18th green, camera crews and fans jostled for position.

He posed for selfies and signed autographs before making his way to the Oak Hill clubhouse to card a second round score that left him just four shots off the lead at the PGA Championship.

It’s the sort of commotion – and score – that typically follows the game’s biggest stars, multiple major winning names like Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas.

But when Michael Block, a 46-year-old PGA Head Professional who teaches golf lessons at a public-access club in California, returned to the clubhouse, he was leading all of them.

Block, head pro at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, shot his second consecutive even-par 70 on Friday to all-but-guarantee the continuation of his fairytale start into the weekend rounds at the 105th edition of the major in Rochester, New York.

One of twenty PGA Professionals to qualify for the tournament, Block has never made the cut in any of his previous seven major outings. He made it to the weekend four times across his 24 PGA Tour appearances before this week, with his career-best performance a tied-69th finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship in 2014.

Yet with the projected cut line expected to fall around five over par at a testing Oak Hill course, Block is planning to stick around for a few more days.

“I think I’m in it, I think I’m good,” he told Sky Sports shortly after his second round.

“It’s been my last goal in my golf career [to make the cut] so I’m very excited about that … To be honest my game’s actually pretty good right now where I think I can compete and have a nice finish and make my wife happy.”

Emblazoned on Block’s golf balls are the words “Why not?”, and the 46-year-old has lived by that question at Oak Hill.

Priced by bookmakers at +50000 (500/1) odds to win heading into the tournament, Block was one shot off the lead…