Michael Block built his fame on a fairy tale finish, a hole-in-one at Oak Hill, and a walk down the 18th with Rory McIlroy. On Sunday in Aberdeen, the story took a different turn. This time he walked off the course entirely, leaving his playing partners and the leaderboard behind after just 12 holes. The club pro who once became golf’s most unlikely folk hero faced the most unlikely disqualification from the Staysure PGA Seniors Championship.

At Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, Block was playing on a sponsor’s invite. He showed up late for his final-round tee time and got docked two shots before he’d even swung a club. From there he shot 43 on the front nine, seven over par, bogeyed the 12th, and walked in. He didn’t say anything to his group. No explanation. The leaderboard lists him as DQ.

This wasn’t a one-round collapse. Block squeaked inside the cut line with rounds of 76 and 73, then dropped off with a 78 on Saturday. Golf journalist, Ryan French of MondayQInfo first broke the news of Block’s DQ story on X. He said locker room sources had described Block as fed up with the course for most of the week. Or so everyone thought.

Block got hit with a penalty before he’d even hit a shot, watched his front nine fall apart into a 43, and had been chafing against the course setup all week. It adds up to a guy who was probably done, mentally, well before he walked off the 12th green. But Block later clarified what had happened and took a subtle jab at the suggestions that he walked off.

Apparently he was delayed to his tee time because of his fans, which happened to be the volunteers in the tournament. And he later withdrew.

“Yes, I was a couple of seconds late to my tee time today; got caught up taking pictures for volunteers. First time in my career and completely my fault,” Block wrote on social media.

He also called the reports of his frustration-led withdrawal “absurd,” saying he tried to follow proper protocol and withdrew dur to an injury.

“A gentleman with a European Tour jacket arrives a couple of minutes later and I tell him that I’m withdrawing. Once I arrived at the clubhouse, I walked into the championship office to thank them for the week but no one was there but thought nothing of it, thinking that I had withdrawn correctly, but I guess the gentleman that gave me the ride was not an official so I was DQ’d, rather than a WD. To hear these accusations that I just walked off the course and that I was upset about the course conditions is absurd,” Block told Golf Digest.

The tournament itself moved on without him.

South Africa’s Darren Fichardt closed out a five-stroke victory at 12-under par, with Sweden’s Mikael Lundberg finishing runner-up. The event carries a total prize fund of $1,150,000 (€1,000,000), and Fichardt’s win puts him at the top of that purse. Former European Ryder Cup player Jamie Donaldson took third, and 2005 U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell rounded out the top 10. None of that will make headlines this week; Block’s exit will.

Three years ago was a different story. Nobody outside Southern California knew Block’s name until he made the cut at the 2023 PGA Championship. He ended up paired with McIlroy on Sunday, aced the par-3 15th, and left that week as one of golf’s most talked-about underdogs. People haven’t forgotten.

That’s why he got the sponsor’s exemption into his PGA Tour Champions debut this year in the first place, an event where he opened with a 66 and, for a stretch, looked like a real contender. But all of it came to an unfortunate end.