Michael Block is headed back to the PGA Championship after playing his way into the field at Aronimink with a strong performance at the 2026 PGA Professional Championship at Bandon Dunes. The 49-year-old head pro at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, California, will turn 50 a month after the major.
Block said the trip to Aronimink will be his 10th major, a number he once never expected to reach. “Oh, yeah, for sure. I qualified for the U.S. Open at Oakmont in ‘07, and I thought that was gonna be it. Forever. And to look back now, this is my 10th major and I’ve played in a good number of PGA TOUR events, it’s beyond belief for a kid that grew up playing baseball in Iowa. I feel incredibly fortunate,” he said.
He is not trying to pretend he belongs in the same tier as the game’s biggest names. “Do I belong with the Scottie Schefflers and the Rory McIlroys of the world? Obviously not. I mean, they're a couple flights ahead of me as far as skill level is concerned,” Block said. But his place in the PGA Championship field is not a fluke. He has qualified for the event five years in a row as a full-time club pro, a run that has turned him into one of golf’s most talked-about figures whether people admire the story or bristle at the attention.
That attention exploded in 2023, when Block finished 15th at the PGA Championship and made a Sunday ace while playing alongside Rory McIlroy. He said the moment felt so unreal that he assumed the camera was off during one interview after learning he would be paired with McIlroy. “I mean, I thought the camera was off,” he said.
Block also said the week at Oak Hill came down to keeping the ball in front of him and surviving the weather. “Well, the first two days the fairways were firm and dry and it was rolling out like I needed it to, so that gave me a chance,” he said. “Somehow, I snuck out a 70 in the rain at Oak Hill.” He added that he was especially pleased to be the low club pro, saying, “I was still stoked because I knew I was going to be low club pro since no one else made the cut.”
What happens next is clear enough: Block will go again, this time at Aronimink, carrying the same odd mix of underdog status, curiosity and pressure that has followed him since Oak Hill. For a club professional who keeps forcing his way onto major stages, the remarkable part is no longer that he showed up once. It is that he keeps finding a path back.
