For comments: ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans, as we head to Colonial for the Charles Schwab Challenge.

1. A cult hero is born

Golf Digest’s Dave Shedloski…”The New York denizens wrapped him in their embrace all day. So he gave them one last reason to cheer. After pulling his approach to the 18th green well left of the green, Block somehow got up and down from the trampled rough, hitting a flop shot from some 32 yards to seven feet and then trickling in the par save that had more meaning than he knew.”

• “Refusing to look at a scoreboard, Block, who began the day tied for eighth, didn’t find out until after signing for a one-over 71 that his final stroke enabled him to retain a share of 15th place, which earns him an exemption into the 2024 PGA at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. He completed the championship in one-over 281, tied with Tyrell Hatton and Eric Cole and posted the best finish by a club professional since Lonnie Nielsen was T-11 in 1986 at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.”

• “That was amazing,” McIlroy said to Block’s wife Val, giving her a hug of congratulations.

• “I guess sort of when it’s your week, it’s your week in a way,” McIlroy said in the aftermath, again using the word amazing to describe his playing partner and the shot heard all the way across the country. “I think with the way the week’s went for him, it [the hole-in-one] was a fitting way to cap off his PGA Championship.”

2. Rory searching

Colby Powell for Golf Channel…“I honestly didn’t feel like I had a chance of winning this week,” McIlroy said after Sunday’s final round. “So it was just about going out there and playing the best I could and trying to make the most of it.”

• “There were signs over the last four days that perhaps McIlroy would put it all together and make a charge, but just like Sunday when he opened his final round with a birdie only to follow with a bogey at the second from the middle of the fairway, it just felt as if he was swimming upstream in Allen’s Creek on his way to a T-7 finish.”

• “So what’s to be made of another top 10 in a major where it never actually felt as if the 23-time PGA Tour winner would be the one holding the trophy?”

• “I would say a top-10 finish, I would have been pretty happy with that at the start of the week,” McIlroy said. “But then once you’re in there and you actually feel like you could have done a little better, it starts to become disappointing. But if I think back to myself on Wednesday, say, just before the tournament started, and someone said, ‘You’re going to finish T-7 this week,’ I would say, actually, that’s probably not a bad week for me with how I’m feeling about everything.”

3. Exemptions

Adam Woodard for Golfweek…”After dazzling fans on the weekend – including an ace during Sunday’s final round – and finishing as the low professional at the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York, Block is taking his talents to the PGA Tour.”

• “The 46-year-old who teaches at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, California, received a sponsor exemption into next week’s Charles Schwab Challenge, May 25-28, at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.”

4. Bryson: Brooks’ win validation for LIV

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach…”Koepka’s 2-shot victory over Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler was the first major championship win by an LIV Golf League player. Other members of the Saudi Arabian-financed circuit said it proved they belong in the major championships.”

• “It validates everything we’ve said from the beginning: That we’re competing at the highest level and we have the ability to win major championships,” Bryson DeChambeau said. “I really hope people can see the light now that we’re trying to provide the game of golf with something new and fresh. I think at the end of the day, both sides are going to have to come together at some point. It’s for the good of the game.”

5. Following his intuition

THE MODERATOR: Michael Block is joining us following the 105th PGA Championship. First of all, congrats on an incredible week. Has everything you accomplished the last few days begun to sink in yet?

MICHAEL BLOCK: Not quite yet. I just got a call from Colonial, and I’m in next week as the last sponsor’s exemption, which is really even more mind-boggling now. So I’m readjusting flights to head to Dallas and Fort Worth, so I’m looking forward to that, to say the least.

No, this week’s been absolutely a dream. I didn’t know it was going to happen, but I knew if I just played my darned game, right, that I could do this. I always knew it.

I had this intuition that it was going to happen — I always had this thing: It was going to happen with Tiger Woods, it really was. I always saw myself coming down the stretch with Tiger Woods. I was like, I’m going to do it, even if I’m 45 or whatever it is, I’m going to come down the stretch at an event with Tiger.

It just happened to be that I was in the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill, and I had Rory McIlroy in my group. I wasn’t coming down the stretch to win, but at the same time, Sunday at a major with the crowd here at Rochester was unreal.

6. Ban LIV rebels from Ryder Cup?

Oliver Brown for the Telegraph…”No sooner had Brooks Koepka tied the ribbon on his fifth major title than the vexed question of his professional allegiance reared its head once more. In the cosy confines of the Golf Channel studio, Brad Faxon, among the mildest-mannered figures you could hope to meet in the game, made the point that a man who had won the US PGA Championship three times in six years should, by any conventional logic, be a shoo-in for the Ryder Cup. “They’re not playing for money,” he said. “They’re playing for their country.”

• “Except Brandel Chamblee, a pundit who has volubly opposed Koepka’s alignment with LIV Golf and all that the Saudi-backed breakaway stands for, shot down the suggestion with thinly veiled contempt. “They’re not playing for their tour?” he replied, incredulously. “There’s certainly a sense that the Europeans are playing for their tour.” “They’re playing golf,” Faxon deadpanned, before the pair engaged in an awkward death stare.”

• “It was a perfect illustration of the insoluble schism that an injection of vast Saudi riches has wrought. On the one side, you have those who regard LIV as an irredeemably debased enterprise, tainting everybody and everything it touches. On the other, there are those championing the prerogative of the finest golfers, as independent contractors, to tee up on whichever tour gives them the greatest financial benefit. And in the middle you have somebody such as Faxon, who initially expressed unease about LIV’s pilfering of talent but who now regards the calls for Koepka to be eligible for the Ryder Cup as misplaced.”

7. Giant golf course sinkhole

Shelby Lofton for KSL.com…”A massive sinkhole has taken over a section of the golf course at the Fox Hollow Golf Club.”

• “The club’s head golf professional, Jaxson Taylor, said the sinkhole was reported around 1 p.m. Saturday. No one fell in or was injured.”

• “We got a phone call, and I ran out there and immediately got on the phone and contacted the city,” Taylor recalled. “Their rapidness, I think, was beneficial.”

• “Golfer Destry Cobbley mows the course and was in the area of the sinkhole as recently as Friday.”

• “There were no indications whatsoever that it was going to give way,” he said. “That’s kind of freaky.”

8. Nelly reveals injury

Kent Paisley for Golf Digest…”the top American on the LPGA announced Monday that she is going to be cautious the next few weeks because of an injury. Nelly Korda took to her Instagram story to explain that she withdrew from next week’s Mizuho America’s Open because of back pain. The new LPGA event this season, with tournament host Michelle Wie West, is at Liberty National in New Jersey.”

• “Never fun or easy news to share but I have made the decision to withdraw from next week’s tournament at the advice of my medical team to address pain in my back,” Korda posted. “We are working on a treatment plan to ensure I’m back to 100% for the remainder of the exciting season ahead. Thank you everyone for the support.”

9. Garcia books U.S. Open spot

Elliott Heath for Golf Monthly…”After failing to qualify for his first Major in 24 years, Sergio Garcia has made sure that won’t be happening twice in a row after making it through to next month’s US Open.”

• “The Spaniard had to do it the hard way, making it through from a stacked field at Bent Tree Country Club and Northwood Club to the north of Dallas city center.”

• “Garcia opened up with a 66 at Bent Tree before another 66 in the afternoon at Northwood to take one of the eight spots on offer for LA Country Club. His score of nine-under-par got him through in T4th, with a birdie on the last ensuring he avoided a playoff.”