ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It was mid-morning Monday when Chris Sanger settled into a spot on the Oak Hill driving range in preparation for his first practice round for this week’s PGA Championship.
Sanger, a 37-year-old club professional at Woodstock Golf Club, a 9-hole course located about two hours north of Manhattan that doesn’t even have a practice range, soon realized as he was practicing that on his left was Matthew Fitzpatrick, the reigning U.S. Open champion, and on his right was Collin Morikawa, a two-time major championship winner.
Two spots away from Sanger, Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner and the No. 3 ranked player in the world, was working on his game.
“It was kind of an out-of-this world moment,’’ Sanger told The Post. “It was exciting. After I hit a few balls, I felt like I belonged there. It’s not like I’m totally out of place, but to be around world-class talent like that … hopefully a little bit of it rubs off on me this week.’’
Sanger is one of the 20 club professionals in the 156-player field at the PGA, having been one of the last to qualify when he made a knee-knocker bogey putt on his final hole of the PGA Professional Championship on May 3 at Twin Warriors Golf Club in New Mexico to secure his spot.
Some of the club pros have been here and done this before. For example, Alex Beach, a pro from Westchester Country Club in Harrison, is playing in his sixth PGA Championship this week.
Sanger’s story is much different than the 19 other club pros here, his journey to Oak Hill more remarkable than most.
Consider that Woodstock Golf Club plays fewer than 6,000 yards after you’ve played the nine holes twice. It has one par-5, a 463-yarder that Sanger calls a “quote-unquote par-5.’’ There is no practice facility.
Sanger, who’d never traveled outside of the Eastern time zone before he went to New Mexico last month, said he takes the winters off to spend time with his wife, Megan, and their three young children, Jack, Joshua and Abby.
I didn’t poll the other 19 club pros here, but I’ll bet my mortgage that all (or at last most) of the 19 play golf all year ’round.
Sanger, for the first time, practiced this winter. He bought a launch monitor and hit balls inside his one-car garage.
“It’s an exceptional story,’’ Judd Noto, the pro who for seven years preceded Sanger at Woodstock and now works at nearby Canandaigua Country Club, told The Post. “[Woodstock is] under 6,000 yards long. When you look at the courses that these other [club] pros are at, some are 36-hole facilities with a fancy driving range, chipping areas and putting areas.
“He was hitting balls in his garage this winter. That’s crazy … but it worked for him.’’
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Sanger is believed to be the first club pro from the Northeastern New York PGA Section to make it into a PGA Championship.
He met Noto when he defeated him in the Woodstock Open, a prestigious, long-running annual amateur tournament at the club, in a playoff in 2014.
Sanger, a native of Red Hook, N.Y., which is about an hour south of Albany, didn’t play college golf, because he said he didn’t have any offers. He said he played “OK, not great’’ in high school. He worked for his local club in Red Hook cleaning carts, went to school to get PGA certified and, after defeating Noto in the Woodstock Open, Noto recommended him as his replacement six years ago.
Sanger’s friends, including Noto, Brent Powlison, the Woodstock GM who hired him, and Justin Lane, his 23-year-old caddie who played five years at Binghamton and has aspirations to be a pro, use words like “mellow’’ and “low-key’’ and “focused’’ to describe him.
Lane was born and raised in Woodstock and won the Woodstock Open last year. His father is a Woodstock cop of some 30 years. He’s soaking this week in just like Sanger is.
“It’s such a small club, and for folks like us to get here is like a dream come true,’’ Lane said. “And, being here with one of your best friends is amazing.’’
When I asked Sanger to best describe his unlikely journey to this PGA Championship, he called it “just a long process over the years of kind of chipping away,’’ adding, “I’ve never really given up on giving myself opportunities to compete.’’
He then recited a quote from Ted Williams that he believes defines him: “Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.’’
“That’s pretty much my game,’’ Sanger said. “I just got a little bit better and better.’’
And here he is.
Sanger dared to dream about moments like this week for himself, but conceded, “It wasn’t very realistic.’’
Well, in the case of Chris Sanger, reality doesn’t suck.
