Cody Blick in an interview with the Web.com Tour (PGA Tour image)
Ever wonder what happens to top amateurs after they pass through the web pages of AmateurGolf.com? Welcome to our new series, the Alumni Report. Each week, we’ll profile a former AmateurGolf.com member now navigating the pro waters, providing a progress report and a snapshot of his or her amateur career.
Whether the theft of
Cody Blick’s golf clubs the night before the final round of the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament was a blessing or a curse is still a toss-up, even days later. There’s no doubt it’s been a headline heard ‘round the golf world since Sunday.
As the story goes, Blick woke up the morning of the final round at Whirlwind Golf Club four shots out of the top-40 position he would need to be in to earn some level of Web.com Tour status for 2019 and quickly discovered his golf clubs were not in the garage of the Airbnb where he had left them.
“The first 5-10 minutes, it was a panic for sure,” Blick said during a Tuesday-morning interview on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive. “I got on the phone with Titleist and they were so good. They had five or six guys on it working non-stop for 90 minutes.”
Then the day’s set started to come together. There were rental wedges and Blick’s own back-up 2- and 3-irons to take to the driving range ahead of his 10:39 a.m. tee time. Blick’s old sand wedge came back to him from a former San Jose State teammate who was on site working as a putting coach (it would be the only truly familiar club in his bag that day).
Titleist arrived shortly before his tee time with a driver and 3-wood that were semi-close to his normal clubs, and the superintendent’s wife drove over a handful of mid-irons on such a tight deadline that Blick didn’t even get to hit them on the range. He rolled a borrowed putter on the practice putting green for 15-20 minutes and headed out to the course.
True, there’s an element of bad luck that hangs over the developments, but there’s also a freedom that comes from playing with borrowed clubs.
“Surprisingly, it almost took some pressure off because the expectations immediately dropped,” Blick said on Morning Drive.
So did his score. Blick and his caddie decided that they had little idea how the irons would perform, so it was worth firing at every pin to “see what happens.” Starting on No. 10 on Whirlwind’s Cattail course, Blick had birdies at Nos. 12, 13, 14 and 18. He told Morning Drive anchors that his first seven birdie putts were inside 5 feet.
Blick closed with a final-round, 9-under 63 to climb to T-25 on the leaderboard and earn exempt status for eight Web.com Tour starts in 2019.
“It’s so cool, this whole story has really blown up -- wasn’t expecting that at all,” Blick said on Tuesday.
A post remains on Blick’s Instagram page offering $5,000 in cash, “no questions asked,” should his stolen set find its way back to him.
For Blick, a 25-year-old from Danville, Calif., the three years following a five-win career at San Jose State have been spent mostly on the Mackenzie Tour. Blick has seven top-10 finishes in 33 starts since 2016, and that includes two runners-up.
As an amateur, Blick frequented the California circuit, finishing in the top 20 at the 2015 Pacific Coast Amateur, and making the quarterfinals of the California Amateur that summer, too.
Blick
was the 2012 San Francisco City Amateur champion and teed it up in seven AmateurGolf.com events in California from 2010-13.