At the PGA Championship (and nearby distances), golfers are chasing the same thing

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Wednesday morning the little course here at Aronimink Golf Club was a sea of ​​golfers, what with all the players and caddies and coaches and machine tools toiling on the same soil. Working boys, looking for swinging thoughts – of emotions, as Tiger used to say – for the opening bell of this PGA Championship in style of the day. One hundred and fifty-six golfers, 20 of whom are club professionals, are vying for a piece of the $19 million purse, as well as a piece of golf immortality, the winner, and a different kind of immortality, of any club professional who makes the cut.

There was Tim Wiseman, the teaching pro at Different Strokes Golf Center, in New Albany, Ind., playing in his second PGA Championship. Just down the stretch from him was Jon Rahm, who won two major championships. Wiseman and Rahm were working on the same thing, broadly speaking. We are all working on the same thing, broadly speaking.

As it turns out, one of the 156 players, in particular, was not on campus Wednesday morning. Braden Shattuck was eight miles down the road, at the Rolling Green Golf Club. Do you remember that Phil Mickelson, in his time, used to go to the place on Tuesday or Wednesday of the big one to the nearest club and try to fix things there, in the name of privacy and lack of disturbance? He practiced, he said, in Sage Valley, down the road from Augusta National, in the days leading up to the Masters. Shattuck, director of instruction at Rolling Green, was not.

Every Wednesday morning during the season, Shattuck hosts a women's clinic in Rolling Green, and she wasn't going to miss this week's session just because she was playing a major tournament. These women are trying to be better, too! To one right-handed woman with a perpetual push-fade slice, Shattuck offered this classic piece of advice: Go to the right of the tee box and point to the left. Talk about your fairway finders. The top piece repair tip of all piece repair tips. This woman had something new to think about. Maybe Shattuck will use the tip himself, come Thursday and Friday, if he finds himself coming down with a case of shoves.

You are always working on something in this game.

Here's Tim Wiseman at the Aronimink range, mixing his ball with the toe of the iron in his hands, trying to get his ball to land on the spring grass. Here's Jon Rahm, walking a short distance away, hooking his ball with the toe of the iron in his hands, trying to get his ball to land on his turf. A chasm, in talent, between two golfers. But a ball is a ball and a club is a club and the only thing there is your hands. Rahm and Wiseman and Shattuck and the women at his Wednesday women's clinic will all attest to the accuracy of that statement. And, of course, Jay Herz, too.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Herz, a retired GE engineer who will be 80 on his next birthday, was in the open about two miles from Aronimink, a 20-acre lawn owned by Radnor Township where golfers are allowed to hit their balls, retrieve them and hit them again. His balls are orange and pink and white and gray. He carried them to his residence in late model plastic bags and a long clear plastic tube. His collection of tees, many of them plastic, suffered from the experience. He was wearing Levi dungarees, a plaid shirt, a white hat, a pair of golf gloves and the tan he brought with him from the winter in Jupiter, South Florida. The forum is public, if you are a resident of Radnor Township. GOLF AT YOUR RISK the sign reads. There were two other golfers, out on the course, each at least 200 yards from the other. There were no accidents in the game, not on this day.

“What am I working on?” said Mr. Herz, repeating the question that had been put to him. “My wrist.” He described what Shattuck, or Ben Hogan, would call delaying the release of the hands until the latest possible moment in the turn. Mr. Herz was looking for more comfort. He was looking far away.

Something surprising here?

Mr. Herz went to Aronimink, once – to play tennis, which is his main sport. He knew about the PGA Championship happening down the road, of course. He has a friend, one of his regular golfing partners, who works the tournament, driving disabled spectators from one place to another. Mr. Herz was preparing for his weekly golf game twice a week at local public courses with his regular players. He plans to watch the tournament on Sunday, from the comfort of his home.

He hit the gun.

“It could use a little more wrist snap,” he said.

He can hit his driver 150 yards every time. Some of his good ones will last longer than that.

Mr. Herz never saw Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy on his tour through South Florida. You saw Tiger's restaurant.

Mr. Herz was asked if he thought the players on Aronimink's roster were doing the same thing he was doing.

“I do,” he said.

And could he explain what that is?

“They're trying to get better,” he said. “That's what I'm trying to do.”

He tied one of his old balls to an old tee and hit it with his old driver. It was a line drive. It was a beauty.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at [email protected].