Despite early-season success, Blick’s lone goal is to block out results, stay happy

Cody Blick is the biggest Tiger Woods fan you’ll meet. He can bang out stats and accomplishments from Woods over the two decades he dominated the PGA TOUR with ease.

But he could not be more different than his golfing hero.

“Tiger’s just so animated and he’s got that raw-raw emotion and the fist pump and that’s just not me. I’m just a smiley guy,” he says, with, well, a smile. “I’m just happy. I’m just trying to be happy at all times.”

That, Blick says, has been the key to his early-season Korn Ferry Tour success. He’s out on outcome goals for 2023 and all he wants to do is keep trying to be happy.

“A big thing I’m doing is being myself,” says Blick. “It’s hard, man. Last week I made back-to-back double bogeys and was outside the cutline … and it was a challenge. But I'm just out there and trying to stay happy. I'm just trying to keep my level of joy high on the golf course no matter what happens.”

It's been easy for Blick to be beaming so far in 2023, however, after a tie for second to start the season at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay followed by a playoff loss at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club. Blick has made all three cuts so far this season and is second on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List as he prepares to tee it up at the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard.

Blick says he isn’t yet “clicking on all cylinders” but is managing all aspects of his game well enough. He did a good job with club and target selection at the first event of the year, he says, and was “truly at peace” with anything that happened that week.

He took that momentum into the next week and very nearly into the winner’s circle, eventually falling to Ben Silverman after he put two balls in the hazard on the first playoff hole.

That mattered little, though – somehow, someway.

“My first four years as a pro if you put me in that playoff and I lose, even if I make a par and lose, I would have been grumpy. I would have been so pissed. I hit two balls into the hazard and that was the most fun 15 minutes of my life,” says Blick. “The Korn Ferry Tour posted on Instagram the interview I gave afterwards and it’s weird watching yourself, but my goal is to be happy and joyful, and I could see it on my face.

“I just lost $90 grand. I lost 200 points. But I am seriously, genuinely happy, and that was my goal.”

Blick exited the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season with way more questions than answers but has turned things around physically and mentally in the early part of 2023.

After suffering from a near career-ending back injury just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic’s start, he was on the shelf for the better part of two years. He discovered relief thanks to American NHLer Bret Hedican and ARP machine therapy and has turned a big corner after playing nine tournaments and making just two cuts last season. He made it through to the Final Stage of Q-School and earned guaranteed starts for 2023. “He changed my career,” says Blick of the back therapy. “I feel better now than I did at 23 and 24 and especially 25. Because at 25 I was just sitting on the couch.

“I’m not a religious man but I think everyone has their own path and I could not accept (not playing golf) in any way, shape, or form. I had a fairly decent college career individually and left in the middle of my senior year and honestly thought it would be one year on (PGA TOUR Canada) and one year on (the Korn Ferry Tour) and straight to the TOUR and boy I was wrong. And that’s OK.”

Blick says now he put too much pressure on himself after turning pro. He came out of college and his swing got “messed up” and had some things to fix. He didn’t acknowledge that then, though, or give himself time to fix it. He thought he’d fix the problems while simultaneously finishing in The Five in Canada then the Top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour.

“And that’s not how it works,” he says.

Now there’s plenty of reasons to smile.

He spent his whole 20s being “broke as a joke,” Blick said. But he saw five figures deposited into his bank account after the first week of the Korn Ferry Tour season, then it happened again the next week.

“Imagine winning a TOUR event and getting $2 million? Like, a nice California house in your bank account?” he says, laughing. “I cannot believe there are two extra commas in my account. I can’t even describe it.”

Where he’s at now, though – financially and otherwise – came after a full decade of grinding physically and mentally. He’s never been this close to a PGA TOUR card, officially, but despite everything that happened at the end of last year he was always close.

That’s a message he’s trying to share with anyone else on their own path. Mini tours, PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica – if you’re competing and competing for money, Blick says, you’re closer than you think.

“I went from terrible status last year and making two of nine cuts and going back to First Stage and now things have totally changed, but nothing has changed,” Blick said. “I’ve let go of outcome goals. I’m just really trying to be happy.”