SPRINGFIELD, Pa. – Take the time to drive miles from the spotlight, get far removed from the roars, and separate yourself from the range of TV cameras, and you might just discover a glorious spot that reminds you that golf is real, very real.
Where it is fun, where it is taught, where it is savored.
Rolling Green Golf Club, for instance.
That is where Braden Shattuck was for hours on Wednesday morning. He could have been at Aronimink Golf Club, working on his game in preparation of the 108th PGA Championship. Instead, he was at his post as PGA Director of Instruction, working on others’ games in a commitment he takes seriously.
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“He really, really cares. He wants us to succeed,” said Gale Donoghue, who was one of 10 golfers at Rolling Green taking part in the latest of a series of clinics offered by Shattuck.
“We couldn’t believe it,” said Marianne Rafter, when asked what she thought about Shattuck’s decision to go through with this on-course clinic on the eve of the PGA Championship. (He earned his spot by finishing T-8 at the recent PGA Professional Championship.)
“We’re astounded he did this with all that’s going on.”
Sharon DiPietro was equally impressed. “I think it was very generous of him,” she said. “All of us would have supported him had he done something else to prepare (for the PGA Championship) so this was kind.”
With a smile and great dignity, Shattuck brushed aside the praise and confirmed he was where he wanted to be. He is someone with a firm grip on perspective, a guy from the Philadelphia suburbs who had one of those horrific breaks in life – a serious car accident in March of 2019, only months after having won the New England Open – that stays with him at all times. For a few years after the crash, Shattuck had to put golf on the back burner and just get healthy.
“I had some mental health problems during that time that were significant and sidelined me pretty hard,” he said. “I had to go to work and put a smiling face on for everybody and that was quite a challenge.”
How he has overcome the adversities is remarkable and the string of successes deserve massive admiration. He won the 2023 PGA Professional Championship, the 2025 Philadelphia PGA, and in 2024 made the cut and was the Low PGA of America Golf Professional at the PGA Championship at Valhalla.
The fact that those successes have come during his time as PGA Director of Instruction at Rolling Green make him rather beloved by the membership and the women who were on course with Shattuck Wednesday morning expressed a deep reverence for his story and the way he conducts himself at these clinics.
“He’s told us at other clinics about his preparation (for tournaments),” said DiPietro. “It’s amazing, he’s very committed.”
Given his local roots and his inspiring story, Shattuck has been given the honor of delivering the opening tee shot of the 108th PGA Championship at 6:45 Thursday morning. He does not take the honor lightly, but in no way was he going to brush aside his day job. Teaching the game to the Rolling Green membership is something he relishes and the fact he was on the putting green at 8 a.m. with five students, then on the course with the women’s clinic from 9-10 was serious stuff.
They were on the course because at a recent clinic Shattuck asked the women what they wanted and they said, “take us on the course.”
So there they were at Rolling Green’s lovely par-4 11th hole where the tee shot into a fairway that runs downhill leaves you a second shot that is uphill. “How far do you hit that club?” he asked one of the golfers and that led him to his point. “Think about the yardage you want for your third shot.”
To see the holes through his eyes and hear the strategy through his words was impactful. And when one of the player’s shots landed in a large, deep-faced bunker set low and to the right of the 11th green there were deep groans.
Shattuck knew the women wanted nothing to do with this shot so they stood in the group and talked about it. The realization was, it was a shot they rarely practiced so he was truly entrenched in his position as a Director of Instruction, not one of the qualifiers at a major championship down the street.
“Would everyone like to come out to this bunker and practice that shot?” he asked.
Heads nodded, hands were raised, resounding “yesses” resonated. “OK, I will set up an evening clinic. I expect you all to be here.”
When at the 13th hole, Shattuck took the time to let players hit from one tee box, then another one 80 yards further up, just to enlighten them about the way angles are so crucial, it was abundantly clear that he had their attention.
As one of the players teed her ball up closer to the left tee marker, Shattuck stopped her and discussed the usual flight of her drives. Sort of left-to-right, she said. “So move it closer to this tee marker,” he said, pointing to the right side. When the woman did as it was suggested and delivered a solid strike down the left side and watched it fade deftly into the middle, a round of applause broke out.
“He puts so much into these clinics,” said Donoghue, who plans to be at Aronimink, cheering on Shattuck.
Yes, that is where golf will be at its best.
But on this morning at Rolling Green, with Shattuck on stage as a PGA of America Golf Professional, Donoghue was part of golf at its most real.
