By Field Level Media<\/p>\n
Oct 04 (Field Level Media) \u2013 Michael Block needed only 30 shots on the back nine and posted a bogey-free 7-under 63 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead after two rounds of the inaugural Jefferson Lehigh Valley Classic in Allentown, Pa.<\/p>\n
Block, a 50-year-old PGA Tour \u200bChampions rookie, stands at 11 under through 36 holes. That puts him one ahead of New \u200cZealand\u2019s Steven Alker and two ahead of first-round co-leader Richard Green of Australia.<\/p>\n
Block, who continues to serve as the head golf professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, Calif., gained a following with a tie for 15th place at the 2023 PGA Championship.<\/p>\n
Block, who shot a 4-under par 66 on Friday, opened with back-to-back birdies on Saturday. He parred the last seven holes on \u200cthe \u200bfront nine, then birdied five of the first seven holes coming in.<\/p>\n
He is \u2060highly appreciative of the welcome he \u2060has received on the tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the support I have from the fellow Champions Tour players is amazing,\u201d Block said. \u201cThe relationships I\u2019ve gotten in six events\/seven, is crazy, and I really appreciate those guys. These guys have been living the Tour life, the PGA Tour life and Champions Tour life for, you know, 20-30 \u200byears, and I\u2019m just out here \u2014 and they know my scenario. I\u2019m out here as a club pro, and being out here for my seventh event in my life, and they really support me, which is \u2060really cool. Trust me, it helps a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Block\u2019s fifth Champions \u2060start at The Ally Challenge five weeks ago, he also held the lead after \u200b36 holes. But he was passed by Alker during the final round and ended up tied for third.<\/p>\n
What did \u200bBlock learn from that experience?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, from Ally, just keep being you,\u201d he said. \u201cLike, don\u2019t try \u200cto be the quiet Michael. Quiet Michael doesn\u2019t work. Michael having fun works. Michael being quiet, Michael trying to be somebody he\u2019s not doesn\u2019t work. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast to Block, who\u2019s happy just to be on the verge of qualifying for the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs, Alker has won three times in 2026, \u2060owns 13 PGA Tour Champions titles and ranks No. 3 on the Schwab Cup money list.<\/p>\n
The 55-year-old has posted matching 65s and, like Block, played bogey-free golf on Saturday. He shot 31 on the inward half and played the \u2060par-3\u2019s in 2-under.<\/p>\n
Alker is well aware \u200cthe gallery will be flocking to Block on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a great following and \u2060I think the crowds will be good tomorrow and want him to do \u200bwell,\u201d Alker \u200csaid. \u201cHe\u2019s a bit different, he likes to talk about things. It\u2019s fun. I \u200bkind of like \u2060watching him play a little bit, see how he goes about the game. Not that I\u2019ll take a whole lot of it forward, but I just like watching him play and how he goes about his game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got game, I\u2019ve got to bring it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan Armour fired a 64 to move into fourth at 8-under. Tag Ridings (65), South Korea\u2019s Y.E. Yang (69) and Sweden\u2019s Robert Karlsson (69) share fifth at 7-under. Yang and Karlsson joined Green atop the leaderboard after \u200bthe first round.<\/p>\n
(\u2013Field Level Media)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Field Level Media Oct 04 (Field Level Media) \u2013 Michael Block needed only 30 shots on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-299502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}