Block Party. We're All Invited

Club pro makes life better for all golfers, especially when he's not playing golf

Michael Block (BroBible)

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The best sports moment in months came Sunday, courtesy of a club pro from southern California who spends most Sundays marshalling a grounds crew and giving lessons at $125 a pop. There’s a mountain of difference between a professional golfer and a club professional. Unless your name was Michael Block late on a magical Sunday afternoon.

Maybe you didn’t see it. It was a blue-perfect day around here, so maybe you were out making magic of your own. Or maybe you’d rather pull a hamstring than watch golf on television. Understood.

Only this wasn’t about golf. The best sports moments aren’t always about sports. The games simply provide the canvas for the artwork. And you cannot say what 46-year-old club pro Michael Block created on the 15th hole at the PGA Championship Sunday was not artwork.

“No way,’’ Block said. Once, twice, three times. His tee shot at the par-3 15th didn’t just roll into the cup, didn’t just bounce a few times and take a dive into the hole. No, the damned ball slammed into the hole on the fly and. . . stayed there. The bottom half of the ball did scrape a tiny bit of turf on its way down. But essentially, the shot was golf’s version of a slam dunk.

For the uninitiated, making a hole in one is a 12,500-to-one proposition for an amateur golfer. The odds are little better for a guy who knows what he’s doing. But. . .

. . . making a perfect ace on Sunday afternoon of a major championship?

“No way,’’ Block said. He couldn’t see the dunk. Block just figured he was close. Then Rory McIlroy hugged him. Block’s playing partner wasn’t Double Bogey Bill from El Segundo. It was Rory McIlroy. Of course.

NoWayNoWayNoWay.

Block glided from tee to green, wrapped in cheers. I haven’t seen much like it since Tiger last won a major.

“Who does that?’’ was the reaction of Mike Auterson. He’s the pro at Hickory Woods Golf Course in Loveland, which makes him a certain itinerant retiree’s boss. Mike didn’t see Block’s ace live. He was running (yet another) outing at Hickory Woods. Trust me when I say Hickory is the Weekend Outing Capital of southwest Ohio.

Mike watched the replay and the interviews when he got home Sunday night.

“Magical,’’ he decided.

Mike Auterson. (Credit: Me)

Here’s what makes it magical, and it’s even more significant than a club pro making a 1 on a par-3. Michael Block and Mike Auterson are the backbone of the game. For every Rory or Brooks, there are 28,000 Mike and Michaels. That’s the number of club pros working in America.

They’re not glamorous sorts. Their lives aren’t one big check-winning cocktail party. All they do is keep the game running. On a normal Sunday, Block is running things at Arroyo Trabuco in Mission Viejo, Cal. Same as Auterson is doing at Hickory Woods. Without these guys, the whole operation falls apart.

You have a clean golf cart? You’re on the 1st tee exactly when you’re supposed to be? The course looks great? The water jugs are full, the hot dogs are hot, you have insulated, disposable bags for your beers?

Did you enjoy yourself?

Thank the guy who made the ace at the PGA. Thank his peer at Hickory.

“Running events, the (golf) shop, doing club repair, putting out fires,’’ Auterson explained. “Joe Public doesn’t see on a given day when things are going right, when we’re putting 300 people through Hickory Woods. My staff is happy, the golfers are happy, things are running well. I get satisfaction out of that.’’

How fussy is Mike Auterson about his golf course? Well, his nickname is “Francis,’’ though if I called him that, my barn-boy career might be over. Francis, as in Francis “Psycho’’ Soyer from the movie “Stripes.’’

Francis is hard to explain, but easy to recognize.

“. . .(Francis) quietly announces that if his fellow soldiers touch him, touch his stuff or interfere in any way with his person or his privacy, he will quite simply be forced to kill them." The response from drill sergeant Hulka, played by Warren Oates—"Lighten up, Francis"—became a popular movie quote. (Wikipedia)

Cold beers and pristine tee boxes aren’t an accident.

Here’s something else about Michael and Mike, and maybe it’s the most important thing. They got into golf because they love the game. They’ve stayed for the same reason.

“Being a PGA pro allows us to compete and be around the game,’’ Auterson said. “There are too many cynical golf pros who used to loved to play game and now resent guys like me who still love playing.’’

“No, I don’t want to play any tours,” Block told Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner on Sunday night. “I just want to come out and compete when I’m around and then go back to my club and hang out with my family.

“Fifteenth place in a major,’’ Block mused. “I mean, that makes me choke up even thinking. I didn’t think about it yet, but I got 15th place in a major championship.”

The roars at 15 were equaled when Block walked the 18th fairway, and again after he made a par-saving 8-foot putt that tied him for 15th place and secured his place in next year’s PGA Championship. The sustained applause was Woods-like.

Everyman does good.

Over in Loveland, the outing ran like a Swiss watch.

Now, then. . .

HOW’S YOUR PATIENCE METER? Jeff Brantley said Hunter Greene’s Sunday performance against the Yankees was possibly the best of his young career. You could debate that. You can’t debate this:

Greene allowed four earned runs in 7 innings, struck out 10 and allowed 2 homers. And he lost. Greene’s record is 0-4, the Reds are 2-8 in games he has started. Metrics say opponents are getting on base slightly more v. Greene than last year, and they’re hitting his pitches a bit harder. His two-year record is 5-17.

He’s not 24 until August. He has made exactly 34 big-league starts. Your patience is worth it. Especially on a team that’s going nowhere. The only good thing about losing is, patience comes with a later expiration date.

That said, strikeouts become more overvalued every time Greene pitches. They’re nice, in a way a Lamborghini is nice. Great ride, wouldn’t drive it to the grocery store.

Greene averages 19 pitches an inning, getting all those strikeouts. Sunday was just the 3rd time in 10 starts he has made it six innings. He’s averaging five innings a start. That doesn’t help his team much.

There will come a time, and it won’t be long from now, when Greene should be expected to go deeper into games, be more efficient and give the Reds a better chance to win. The training wheels are becoming worn.

And finally. . .

COUNTRY MUSIC. WHAT SAY YOU?. . . Maximus, Pogo and I had a little talk on it Saturday night. Unbeknownst to me until recently, Max is a fan. He lists the group Old Dominion as among his favorites.

Never heard of ‘em. I tried introducing him to my limited affection for the genre. He didn’t like Robert Earl Keen, so I gave up.

Pogo likes country as well. He even calls square dances.

I think some of the lyrics are fantastic. “You’re the reason our kids are ugly’’ is pretty strong. “I ain’t as good as I once was, but once I’m as good as I ever was.’’ Nice.

Got my dawg, got my truck, got my sister I . . .

Just stop it, Doc.

I love Dickey Betts. His great, great solo debut, Highway Call, is heavily country influenced. But as a whole, I can take country or leave it.

What am I missing, Mobsters?

Give me something that sounds more like Dickey and less like big hair.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Here’s an excellent Dickey tune. To me, it’s country. Or at least as country as I want to go.