|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PGA CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 5, 2014Michael BlockLOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY KELLY ELBIN: 2014 PGA professional national champion, Michael Block joining us at the 96th PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. In June, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Michael prevailed in the 42nd National PGA Championship and is leading the contingent of 20 PGA professionals into the field this week. Michael is representing the Southern California Section of The PGA of America and is the PGA head professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, California. Must be a terrific thrill to be representing your club, your section and your 19 fellow professionals this week. MICHAEL BLOCK: Yeah, it's 100 percent a dream to be here. And to help the The PGA of America as a PGA member is absolutely amazing, and I feel very lucky and am honored to be able to participate in one of the four majors. KELLY ELBIN: And you get to play with Colin Montgomerie the first two rounds, which is not too bad. MICHAEL BLOCK: You know what, I grew up watching the Golf Channel every morning, about 5:00 am, I'm an early bird. Right before I go to work and before I would go to school, I would watch The European Tour on the Golf Channel. Colin was always just dominating. I mean, I must have watched Colin play hundreds of rounds of golf on TV and to now be teeing it up with Colin is pretty surreal to say the least, and also very honored to be playing with a former PGA Champion, Shaun Micheel. KELLY ELBIN: You qualified for the 2007 U.S. Open and you've played in a few TOUR events, so you have some experience coming in here. How do you feel about your game this week and just some thoughts on the golf course? MICHAEL BLOCK: The golf course is absolutely perfect. The greens could not be any better. Really reminds me of where I grew up. I grew up in the Midwest, so I'm pretty used to the Kentucky blue and the bentgrass greens. I'm expecting the greens to just get more firm and fast as week goes on, which I'm looking forward to, and getting a little more roll out of the fairways which will make the course a little bit shorter. Right now it's a very fair course. I think it's a fun course. Every hole has its own unique personality. I honestly believe I can contend, to tell you the truth, and that's how I approach everything; if I don't, it's not a good way to go about it. Definitely, I come here to win, honestly. I know a lot of people would laugh at that but that's how I think. Q. You've played in a major before. You've played in the same group with a Major Champion. Do you think that's at all of any benefit, whatever nerves you're likely to have, maybe just a little bit less than you might otherwise? MICHAEL BLOCK: One hundred percent. Obviously my first TOUR event, ever, was the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, which was a wake‑up call. I was happy to break 80 those two rounds. I literally went into that tournament wanting to break 80, so that was my mentality at that point in my life in 2007. Since then, I've become a ClassA member, been lucky enough to play in the Farmers Insurance and the Northern Trust in the last two years. In the first two rounds, I've been paired with great guys and had a great time with them and was very comfortable and was lucky enough to shoot a couple of good rounds to make both cuts. So far, I've failed miserably on Saturdays, which I've been DNF both times. My goal going into both those two events was to make the cut though, so when I made the cut, I got to Saturday, and I was goal‑less and I'm definitely a goal‑oriented human being and I definitely strive to exceed my goals. Now to be honest, I have a whole new list of goals and it goes way beyond making the cut. Q. We learned about your story obviously with the chance to get to the U.S. Open by being in a playoff in a Sectional championship and facing a birdie putt in a playoff, and then you faced a birdie putt at Myrtle Beach to get to the PGA Championship. Can you speak about your ability in those pressure moments? MICHAEL BLOCK: I am ten times better on the golf course than I am on a driving range. Most people are the opposite. Most people, they are fantastic on the driving range and then they struggle on the golf course. For some reason, I'm the exact opposite. I tend to hyper focus when I do get on the golf course, and the more extreme the pressure, usually the‑‑ I tend to pull the shot off at that point. When I get a little lazy or a little lackadaisical is when I tend to miss‑hit the shots. Yeah, on the driving range, you'd be surprised if I would break 75 out there. But I'm a grinder. I'll get out there and I'll bleed and I'll get it under 70 no matter what it takes. Might not be pretty sometimes, but I'll make sure it gets done. Regarding the birdies, that's all I'm thinking. I always know in those playoffs, and trust me, I have lost more playoffs than I've won, but I've been lucky enough to be in a lot of them, so the odds are in my favor to at least win a couple. I've been lucky enough to get into two majors in playoffs, so they can have the other playoffs I've lost. Q. Can you talk about what you would be doing this week if you weren't here, and give us a picture of what your day job is like and your routine. MICHAEL BLOCK: That's funny. I would be giving‑‑ I'd be at the golf course at 8:00 a.m. I would teach from 8:00 to 10:00, which is usually three or four lessons. I would then head into the golf shop returning e‑mails and phone calls regarding golf tournaments, coming to the club possibly and outside events. Make sure the staff, you know, is doing their job in there; making sure there's no fires, put out any fires that need to be put out. Then I would head back out to the lesson tee at approximately two o'clock and teach until dark. I do that five days a week. On my days off, my favorite thing in the world to do is to then head to the golf course back with my children, my seven‑ and nine‑year‑old boys and play nine holes in the morning, the back nine, before the members get there. I'm very lucky to be at the club I'm at. I love going to work. Like I said, I wake up, I watch golf. I go to work at a golf course, I come home, I have dinner and I watch golf. And I've been doing that, I swear, for 30 years. And I keep on thinking I'm going to get burnt out on golf, but I must be probably one of the biggest fans in the world of the sport and I'm just like everyone else out there on the other side of the ropes this week for sure, and I see myself in them and I've been there and I've done that. I've been holding a ticket and had my ticket signed by Payne Stewart in, I believe, it was the '92 PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club where I'm from. So every time I'm signing one of these tickets, I literally go right back to when I was ten years old doing this exact same thing. I'm very lucky to have this opportunity and I hope this isn't the last one. Q. You talk about having ambitions beyond this week; is that as a competing professional or as a club pro? MICHAEL BLOCK: I have a tough time with that. I am lucky enough that due to winning the National Club Pro, I was given the chance and the opportunity to play in six PGA TOUR events. And I also had the opportunity as being a Southern California PGA section member to qualify for three PGA TOUR events in Southern California, all three of them, which that's how I've gotten into the last two, and due to that, I'll have an opportunity to play in between six to ten PGA Tour events in the 2014‑15 season. And I'm purposely going to try to get as many as I can in the beginning of the year, especially in the West Coast Swing, just in case I do finish high and I could actually possibly retain my card, I would do that. Outside of that, I have a tough time leaving what I have and what I do. It would have to be that. Due to also winning, I am automatically into the second stage of Q‑School, but I will not be doing that. I'm not going to leave my job and the opportunities I have and the people I work with and being a ClassA PGA member being able to play in what I do unless I have my card on the PGA TOUR. Q. You've talked about how this is a life‑changing experience getting this opportunity. How has life already changed beyond what all the tournaments that you get to play because of it? MICHAEL BLOCK:  My life since then has been nonstop; phone calls, e‑mails, interviews, mics hanging off my back, trying to play golf with wires up my shirt, and it's been great. I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. The membership at the club, my door's right there where everyone checks in in the golf shop, and it's just nonstop, people coming in, shaking my hands and wishing me luck and telling me congratulations, and phone calls from my section members. It's been a lot of fun. I've heard from a lot of my old schoolmates from back in the day that I haven't seen in 20 years. Outside of that, being a national champion is something that no one can ever take away from me, so it's a pretty an amazing thing. And for when I tee off and someone says, "Now on the tee, the 2014 National Club Pro champion" it gives me chills. And still, it's been over three weeks now, and I still honestly haven't landed. As soon as I get done with this week, I literally have a month of just normalcy and I'll be working for the next month just straight. I think that's when it will actually sink in. Q. Can you talk about some of the things this week that you've really enjoyed that are out of the ordinary, just part of being at a major championship that's really caught your attention? MICHAEL BLOCK: I was just watching Rory hitting some of the most unbelievable bunker shots. He just walked by and was hitting it. I'll tell you what, that guy is on fire. Just watching him‑‑ I'm always watching him on TV, going the greens must be soft or that sand must be perfect. I don't spin the ball like Rory when he hits the green. It's pretty amazing. Just being around the people I watch on TV and the people I idolize and the people I've been seeing forever, such as Colin Montgomerie, the guy has been in my life my whole life; yet he doesn't know it (laughter) and I've looked up to him. I'll make sure I don't tell him that when I play with him on Thursday and Friday. But it's great. And just sitting in the locker room with my name up on the Valhalla 2014 PGA Championship, you know, it's just an amazing feeling. And the cool thing is now, honestly, I've been around it enough where I'm actually comfortable now. I'm really not that intimidated anymore. Every day since I've been here, I've had three practice rounds and I'm feeling better and better and better, and I can tell by Thursday, I'll be full cylinders at that point. Q. Have you introduced yourself to any of the golfers this week, like Rory? Did you go up to Rory and ask him how he gets that spin? MICHAEL BLOCK: No, I did not. I sat there and watched it. I see what he does. He filets it open and then he really opens it up more and accelerates more than I would because I would be afraid of hitting the spectators on the other side of the short game area personally, but he's not afraid of that, I guess. No, I have not. I'm still not confident enough to just be walking up to people, nor have I really ever been, where I just walk up to anybody and introduce myself. I'm lucky enough to have friends‑‑ I've met Cameron Tringale a couple of times and he's been nice enough to where I'm going to tee it up with Cameron tomorrow. I have to say, everyone is absolutely fantastic, without a doubt. Talked to Erik Compton today, had breakfast with him. Fantastic human being. Can't believe what he's gone through and what a great guy he was. But through the four events I've been in now, I can't say a bad word about an individual that's out there. I just look forward to hoping to play with more and more and get to know them, because ‑‑ you know, I've played with Streelman. And I swear, a lot of the guys I've played with, for instance, two guys, Robert Streb and Kevin Streelman, who I played with at the Northern Trust and the Farmers Insurance, are nicer than almost anyone I've almost ever played with in my life. I'm talking like my Tuesday morning Skins Game; I'm talking anybody, and they treated me as nice as anyone has ever treated me in my life. It says a lot about the PGA TOUR and the class act of the gentlemen that are out here. KELLY ELBIN: You've gotten some notoriety in regards to the phrase, why not. Can you talk for a second about the origin of that? You have it imprinted on your golf balls, and just what that means to you. MICHAEL BLOCK: In about 2006, I was a very frustrated golfer, as many are. I would get very frustrated on the golf course. And I just had children, two boys, in 2005 and 2006, and I didn't want to demonstrate this to my boys whatsoever. I wanted to be a good role model to my children. So I actually started writing happy faces on my golf ball just to try to get me in a good mood even when I did not execute a shot. Then the happy faces were kind of weird, so I got off that pretty quick and I went straight to question marks. One of my main thing over the golf ball is full commitment and the only way you're going to have full commitment is if you have full confidence in yourself in executing the shot; and the way that I do that mentally is thinking why not, why can't I execute this shot perfectly; why can't I make this shot; why can't I make the cut in a TOUR event and why can't I compete in a []major championship. Now I take that mentality, no matter whether it's a metro chapter event, a section event, a PGA TOUR event or a major, I take the same mentality every time I'm over the golf ball now. And I still every once in awhile get lackadaisical and do not, and I tent to hit it thin when I do that. I'm definitely writing "why not" on all my golf ball. KELLY ELBIN: Do you tee it up on the tee with the words facing you so you can see them? MICHAEL BLOCK: I do. When I line it up, I have "why not" for sure. KELLY ELBIN: PGA Professional National Champion Michael Block, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|