SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (AP) — Braden Shattuck grabbed a golf club and held it horizontally just above his knees. He stretched the club out about even with his toe line to help show an amateur how to keep her club on the correct swing plane.
“I used to do that as a junior golfer because I had trouble with alignment,” Shattuck explained to his pupil. “It's a trick that you're able to do under the rules. You can't lay the club down and check it. But you can put
it right over your toe line, check where you're at.”
Shattuck's teaching gig delayed his arrival later in the day at Aronimink Golf Club, where he was set to play at least nine holes in preparation of this weekend's PGA Championship in suburban Philadelphia.
Let Rory McIloy and Jordan Speith and most of the top-ranked players of the world spend Wednesday working on their game at Aronimink or signing endless amounts of autographs.
Shattuck had to clock in for his day job.
Shattuck, the PGA director of instruction at Rolling Green Golf Club, just 10 miles down the road from Aronimink, kept his appointment teaching a golf clinic, where he led a group of 10 women — from long-time students to the new La Salle women's golf coach — on tackling the more challenging parts of the game.
Shattuck is set to strike the opening tee shot of the tournament at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday — well before he ever usually grabs his bag — and is one of 20 golf professionals in the 156-man PGA Championship field. He finished eighth in April at the PGA Professional Championship in Oregon to earn a spot in the major.
He was raised in suburban Philadelphia and his local ties in Delaware County — Shattuck's been peppered with chants of “Do it for Delco!” — have made him an instant fan favorite. He laughed when he said the number of women were more than the normal number for a clinic — and certainly, there were more cameras than usual.
“If it makes any of you nervous, sorry,” Shattuck said with a chuckle.
His students didn't seem to mind their time in the spotlight, thanks to a PGA of America film crew and a pair of reporters that tagged along.
When one student boomed a shot down the middle of a hole on a course lined by gritty residential homes, she exclaimed, "Come on, Braden. Right in the middle, baby!”'
The 31-year-old Shattuck, in his fifth year at Rolling Green, said his sense of obligation kept him from ever considering canceling the clinic. There were swings to fix. Bunker shots to solve.
His students needed the practice.
Nancy Barton, a long-time club member from Drexel Hill, practiced her approach on the 11th hole shooting over a deep right greenside bunker.
“There's no confidence standing over your ball because this is so intimidating,” she said.
Shattuck counseled the golfer and told her more advice would come for the entire group if he scheduled more clinics at least once a month. He polled the golfers for ideal times, and they settled on a weeknight, preferably Tuesdays or Wednesdays. There was one caveat to the practice times:
“I expect all of you to show up,” Shattuck said.
Shattuck will show up and teach — and arrive at Aronimink around 4:30 a.m. Thursday — even if the longest of long shots (he has 2000-1 odds) somehow wins the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday.
He's successfully navigated one of the busiest weeks of his career — including convincing security at Aronimink to let him park his pick up truck even though he didn't have the right tag, to landing 18-year-old high school senior Beau Riviere to caddy for him — as he prepared to play in his first major since the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
Gale Donoghue, who lives in the nearby borough of Media, played in the clinic and has received 1-on-1 lessons from Shattuck for years. She's such a fan of his, Donoghue insisted she would set the early alarm to watch Shattuck start his round. Donoghue said she was among a sizeable contingent of Rolling Green players that rooted him on when he played in the 2024 Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches.
“I have three boys, so I can compare; he's very focused, very earnest,” Donoghue said. “He's very astute. He has this quiet way of observing and listening and then moving forward.”
Shattuck is well-versed in moving forward.
He was forced to rebuild his swing from the ground up following a car accident in 2019 that resulted in multiple herniated disks in his lower back, led to years of mental health struggles and made even walking difficult.
“Having panic attacks almost daily, having chest pain daily, dealing with anxiety was by far the hardest part of that, and I dealt with that for years,” Shattuck said. “Had to go to work and put a smiling face on for everybody and that was quite a challenge. I’m finally on the back end of that after six or seven years of it, however long ago that accident was.”
He's on the back nine of his recovery and was in good spirits at the course that served as the site of the 1976 U.S. Women's Open and 2016 U.S. Women's Amateur teaching his students the finer points of selecting the proper tee box and greenside bunker shots.
There are perks to making the field that go well beyond rubbing shoulders with the game's greats and not all the talk at Rolling Green was about pins and putting.
One golfer needed to know what kind of courtesy car Shattuck had shuttling him to Aronimink.
The answer: A Lexus.
“I’ll take it,” Shattuck said.
___
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
