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THE MODERATOR: Well good afternoon everyone and welcome to the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club. We are pleased to kick things off in the interview room this week with Braden Shattuck. Braden, welcome to your third PGA Championship. This one is a little different for you as a local. How excited are you to compete in a home major championship?BRADEN SHATTUCK: I'm very excited. I think anybody would be excited to compete in a major championship, and then having it be right down the street in my local section makes it even more sweet.Q. You've played in a couple of these before and what has this initial day been like for you?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, they gave me a hard time trying to get in here with my pickup truck and I didn't have the right tag and all that stuff. I'm going to take the courtesy car for the rest of the week just to avoid any problems.But it's starting to set in now that all of the other players are here. I got over here the last couple days and it was nice and peaceful and quiet and now it's starting to feel like a major.Q. Can you talk a little bit about your caddie? Who is caddying for you this week?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yes, my caddie, his name is Beau Riviere, and he is a member and a worker over at my home club, Rolling Green Golf Club. So he's probably one of our best caddies, I'll selfishly say that. Very good.He'll be on the bag for me this week. He was on the bag for me a couple events last year and at the national club pro out at Bandon.Q. How old is he and how much does he know about golf?BRADEN SHATTUCK: He's 18. He's quite the player himself.Q. Tell us about your familiarity with this course. What's your history here?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Not as familiar as you would think being from the area. I've only played a couple of tournament rounds here, and in the last couple weeks, I've played the most amount of golf here than I have in my whole life.So being here 31 years, I'd only played it two times, and then in the last couple weeks I've played it three or four times.So I don't know the course any better than anyone else, which is surprising to hear, considering, but that's just the reality.Q. Can you talk a little bit about the preparation for the PGA Championship, and then what, if anything, you took from previous experiences?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Preparation probably wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. As soon as I got home from Bandon, it was right back to work, teaching, coaching, programming from 8:00 to 6:00 every day.Trying to find some time at the beginning off the end of the days to get my game to where it need to be compete in a tournament like this, it's a little bit of a challenge. So it's been extra-long days ever since I got back, trying to schedule breaks during the day to hit some balls or getting out early, maybe 4:00, and trying to get nine holes in over here at Aronimink.So having played in majors before, I know what it takes. Your ball-striking and your entire game needs to be super-dialed in. The fairways are not very wide. The rough is very thick. So my game need to be better than it is normally, just to compete and I haven't had the time that I need to but this week with practise rounds and fully focusing on the tournament, I'll have the time and the resources to dial my game in to where it needs to be.Q. As you said, you're not very familiar with the course, but this is a home area for you. Do you have a lot of friends, family, support coming out for you through the week, and how do you think that will help you play as you take on the course?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, I will have a lot of family and a lot of friends coming out. I'm really excited. I spent about two hours last night trying to send tickets out to family and friends and getting e-mail addresses. It's been -- I'm like my own manager. It's been a lot but it's really exciting to have some extended family coming to this event that normally they don't watch or play golf.My in-laws, they are not sports people, either. They have never been to a golf course, let alone a major tournament or major championship. To see their faces when they come in on Friday, I can't wait to see how overwhelmed and shellshocked they really are.Q. Probably after you had your car accident a couple years ago, you probably did not imagine you would be playing in a major a couple years later at Aronimink. What's it going to be like for you?BRADEN SHATTUCK: It's going to be very special. There was a lot of build up to this tournament. I knew this was coming here for many years. As each year comes by, you get a little closer, everybody asks me, Do you think you're going to qualify? I think it adds a little bit of extra pressure. To get a tee time on Thursday, it's almost like a weight off of my shoulders.Q. Braden, did you put extra pressure on yourself out at Bandon Dunes for the tournament? If so, what were your moods like round three 80, and how satisfying was the way you finished?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, thank you for reminding me of that 80. I did put a little bit extra pressure on that week. It meant a lot, and like I mentioned, there was a lot of buildup to it.So it's hard to manage the emotions on and off the golf course. I find it a lot easier on the golf course. When you go home for the day and you just have to sit with whatever just happened that day, like shooting an 80, it makes the evening and the nighttime a little bit more difficult than normal.So managing those emotions and just accepting the outcome was probably the most difficult thing I've had to do.Q. (Follow up - no microphone.)BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, that was a wild finish. I kept getting myself inside the cut line and I kept trying to mess it up. There was a lot of emotions from pretty much pure rage to the most satisfaction you could probably have tapping in on 18. It was incredible.Q. Do you feel like you're bringing any off-the-course advantages with the familiarity of this being in your backyard?BRADEN SHATTUCK: I don't know if I have an advantage over other players in the field, considering they are all the best in the world.But you know, everything up here is pretty much bentgrass and bluegrass rough and stuff that I'm very used to. We're spoiled here to have the golf courses and the type of grasses that we do. You go around the country and you play on bermuda, we just placed on fescue and poa annua out in Bandon.We are very spoiled to have the courses and the conditions that we do. I'm very familiar with super-quick greens and tight surfaces around the green and thick rough.So it's nothing new.Q. I know it's been a hot minute since you were in that car accident and everything, but to go from that moment to sitting here right now, can you just encapsulate what it feels like? It's a rather large stretch for what you've been through, right, to be sitting in your backyard having this chance.BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, it's been a roller coaster ride physically, mentally, emotionally, just navigating all the challenges that kind of arose from back problems to having to go to the doctor constantly and not being able to play for a couple years and changing up my swing and my technique and my equipment.I just made another swing change and technique in equipment just a couple months ago to get ready for this year. It's been -- I feel like I'm going through a maze trying to figure out the right answer constantly.It's been a lot of fun for me to experiment like that, and it's actually helped me a lot as a teacher because I've done a lot of things that I normally wouldn't have done to try to find the right answers.So it's been quite the adventure to now be sitting here talking to you guys.Q. This section was a pretty robust tournament program and a long history of elite players. Have you taken any time to reflect about your recent successes and where you fit in to all of that?BRADEN SHATTUCK: I have not spent that time. I've had people mention it to me, and I just try to ignore it and put my head down and keep improving and wherever that leaves me when my golf career is over, maybe I'll reflect then when I'm old and retired.Q. How is your wife and your family helping you stay in the moment this week?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, my wife and I have actually scheduled some time to spend together in certain mornings and certain evenings because these weeks can be crazy and they can kind of consume you.She's my rock and she helps me calm down and be a normal person again. We went out to breakfast this morning. Spent some time together. We are going to have some dinners scheduled this week. I think it was actually -- we don't normal schedule time together, but since it's such a crazy week, I wanted to make sure that we could, and she wanted to make sure we could spend time together.She's been huge in my successes, just from keeping me sane and she's actually been helping me with some of the changes I'm making in my swing because she's an exercise science undergrad and she's going to be going to continuing education for physician assistant school.So she's very well-versed with the human body, so it's been helpful to bounce a lot of ideas off of her. It's just been a blessing to have her.Q. Do you have any relationships with anybody on TOUR, and have you gotten any advice so far from people you've met on TOUR going into this week?BRADEN SHATTUCK: I don't have any, like, super close relationships. I would say probably the closest one I have is with another local, Sean O'Hair, who is in the kind of backstages of his PGA TOUR career. He's had so much success out there. He's won. He was Rookie of the Year. He has four wins. At one point he was top 10 in the world.I've played some golf with him and practise rounds out on tour and we've talked. Honestly I absorb a lot from just watching him play golf and picking his brain here and there. He's always been an incredible ball-striker and that's been the weakest part of my game.Seeing how he approaches preshot rounds and practise rounds has been extremely helpful for me, just absorbing it through being around him.Q. I was hoping maybe you could reflect a little bit on the lowest point of that journey back from injury good what are some things specifically that you do to remain resilient and buoyant?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Besides the physical challenges of physical therapy and going to get injections and PRP and all the -- I could sit here for an hour and name all the things I did.I had some mental health problems during that time that were significant and sidelined me pretty hard. In and out of the hospital quite a bit and working with psychologists and psychiatrists and you name, it I've worked with them. 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.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. It was a grind, physically and mentally, that I wanted to give up on at times.Luckily I've had a lot of great people in my life that have pushed me past that and helped me and gotten me to where I am today and I feel like I'm in a really good space physically and mentally.Q. Was there anything specific, meditation, books, any piece of advice, something that helped you recapture that mental edge?BRADEN SHATTUCK: Yeah, mindfulness, acceptance commitment has been a program I've been working on with a psychologist friend of mine, David Clemens. And he's been incredible to help me with that. And on a daily basis, I'm always practicing mindfulness, whether it's, you know, folding clothes or washing a different or just focusing on my breathing.I use biofeedback machines that help me keep track of my heart rate and my respiratory rate and help me to relax. So practicing those multiple times a day for 20 or 30 minutes, I got really good at bringing my heart rate down, which inadvertently helped me on the golf course when you have a nerve-wracking shot.I wear one of these (indicating watch). So I get to see, Oh, my heart rate is about 140 and I'm trying to hit this putt. I'd better step over here and take a few deep breaths and be mindful of how I'm feeling.I got so good at it from trying to help my anxiety that it actually helped me with my golf game. I could bring my heart rate from 140 to 80 in just ten seconds. All of those struggles have -- have helped me with that but meditation and mindfulness have been really, really key in kind of helping me get past all that stuff.THE MODERATOR: Thanks for your time, good luck this week.
