Along with the main event of crowning the PGA Championship winner, there is also the task of who will be the low PGA of America Golf Professional of the week. Well... after four rounds, we now know, with Braden Shattuck firing a one-under tournament total to claim the title.
Along with Shattuck, Jeremy Wells was the only other PGA Professional to make the weekend and, with Shattuck starting with a six shot lead, the American managed to extend his advantage to seven to pick up the historic trophy.
Speaking after his round, the PGA Director of Instruction at Rolling Green Golf Club in Springfield, Pennsylvania, revealed that he has plans to play tomorrow in a Philadelphia section event but, with a 10 hour drive in store, it could be touch and go as to whether the 29-year-old will make his tee time.
"I'm going to be hanging around for a while for the ceremony at the end and then once all that's over with I'll be driving back with my friends," stated Shattuck. "I think it's about a 10-hour drive back, and try and make my tee time for tomorrow at Bellewood for the section event. It's one of the Silver Crest Cup qualifiers, so I need to show up and play so that I can get points to qualify."
He went on to add: "This week has been obviously awesome. This is the first cut I've made on the PGA Tour and I just happened to do it in a Major. I couldn't do it in the opposite field events, but I did it this week. So it was an amazing week to see what the weekend was like. Shot a good round yesterday, didn't quite finish it up today, but it was awesome, learned a lot, had a lot of fun."
Following the feat, it's now just a month until the next men's Major, the US Open, an event that often sees an interesting field due to the qualification process around the United States.
In 2023, over 10,000 attempted to qualify and, for 2024, it's likely that number will be the same. However, one name that won't be present is Shattuck, who explained that he won't be at US Open qualifying due to the fact he is getting married the week of the qualifiers, with none of the dates working for the American.
Despite that, Shattuck will take a lot of positives from his week in Valhalla, stating: "I think I'll probably get a lot of questions about what was it like to play in a Major and what were the nerves like and what was it like to play the weekend; were you nervous? what did you do to kind of keep yourself calm? I get a lot of those kind of questions, especially from students and members, so I'll be able to have all the answers for them."
