Made Men: Atlanta teens embark on trip of a lifetime

Atlanta teenagers Shelton Davis and Brandon Bradley, both accomplished members of the renowned First Tee at East Lake at famed East Lake Golf Club, are headed to St. Andrews, Scotland, where they'll work with PGA.com as it covers the 134th Open Championship.

Editor's note: What follows is the first of two features that will chronicle the experiences of Shelton Davis and Brandon Bradley, two promising junior golfers from Atlanta who will join PGA.com at the Open Championship. Shelton and Brandon, both members of the First Tee of East Lake based at Charlie Yates Golf Course, which is affiliated with famed East Lake Golf Club, will experience the Open Championship and the Old Course at St. Andrews by serving as credentialed assistants to PGA.com staffers. In this story, PGA.com managing editor John L. Byrwa tells you a little bit about the boys' life and why they were chosen to receive this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Come back to PGA.com on Friday, July 22, to find out what Shelton and Brandon saw and did during their stay in Scotland.

ATLANTA (PGA.com) -- It is roughly 4,070 miles from Atlanta to St. Andrews, Scotland. But for someone who grew up in a former Atlanta housing project named East Lake Meadows, it might as well have been from here to the moon.

But as you're about read, if someone dreams hard enough -- and tries hard enough -- not only can they reach the moon, they can even grab a star.

Or become one. Just like Shelton Davis and Brandon Bradley did.

Shelton and Brandon, both teenagers and standout students at Atlanta's Southside High School, grew up in East Lake Meadows, a dark, dreary place known by locals as "Little Viet Nam." It was a place where ruthless drug dealers hustled the streets, fatherless families and unemployment were the rule rather than the exception, and trouble of the worst kind lurked around every corner.

Shelton Davis displays the form that has won him several junior tournaments.
(Photo: First Tee at East Lake)

It was a place where dreams went to die, not be born.

"It was everywhere," Shelton, a stocky 16-year-old with a barrel chest and short, thick legs, says with a shake of his bowed head. "Drugs, stealing, guns, it was everywhere, man."

"It was bad, real bad," is all Brandon says of his dark days in "The Meadow."

But it is good, real good, these days for Shelton and Brandon.

The two close buddies are sitting in the modest clubhouse of the Charlie Yates Golf Course, a challenging 18-hole public executive layout that is part of the re-born East Lake Golf Club and surrounding community. East Lake, better known as the new permanent home to the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship, is where the legendary Bobby Jones grew up and learned the game of golf.

It is also where East Lake Meadows used to loom less than a mile away, casting an ominous shadow over the grounds where grace and greatness once walked. Then came one glorious day in 1995, when a battalion of wrecking balls and bulldozers demolished all 650 depressing units to make room for the new Villages of East Lake, an award-winning mixed-income apartment community that today includes a charter school for kindergartners through eighth graders, a state-of-the-art YMCA, a child development center and a Publix grocery store.

And, most fortunately for Shelton, Brandon and hundreds of other area kids, the renowned First Tee at East Lake.

Under the direction of Sam Puryear, the First Tee at East Lake teaches golf skills and life lessons while providing year-round instruction, equipment and tournament-play opportunities to more than 750 inner city children annually.

For more than seven years, two of Puryear's most dedicated attendees have been Shelton Davis and Brandon Bradley.

Brandon Bradley sometimes sports a unique hairstyle.
(Photo: PGA.com)

"Both of them have been resilient and they have endured a lot," Puryear says of Shelton and Brandon, who in just a few short years have evolved into accomplished players. "They've made tremendous strides, personally, academically and golf-wise.

"Since I've known them, they've shown great character and responsibility. They both work at the golf club to earn money, and they don't blow their money. They use the money they make to pay bills for their families. To me, that exemplifies someone becoming a man."

Those character traits also led Puryear to pick Shelton and Brandon for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of traveling to the birthplace of golf, St. Andrews, Scotland, for this week's 134th Open Championship. There, the pair will work with PGA.com staff members as credentialed assistants, learning about how the media covers major golf tournaments.

PGA.com, produced and managed by Turner Sports on behalf of the PGA of America, became involved with the First Tee at East Lake through Turner Sports' involvement with the whole East Lake community revitalization movement, according to Turner Sports executive vice president Drew Reifenberger.

"Through Turner Sports' close interaction with East Lake, and after some conversations with them, we came up with the idea for this trip," Reifenberger said. "What we hope to provide them with is an experience that exposes them to different cultures and the inner-workings of the media business that they'll find valuable and useful."

Added Phil Sharpe, assistant general manager of Turner Sports, "We're very excited about having Shelton and Brandon accompany us to St. Andrews. We've had the pleasure of meeting them and playing golf with them, and they're both fine young men who deserve this unique opportunity to travel to the home of golf and experience the Open Championship from behind the scenes."

Shelton and Brandon are both soft-spoken young men, seemingly embarrassed by their successes both on and off the golf course. Along with having risen above the sadness and madness of living their early years in East Lake Meadows - Brandon is a junior honor-roll student at Southside High School, while classmate Shelton does better than most -- the two have risen like rockets on the golf course, too.

Shelton, who possesses a powerful, technically sound swing and hits the ball a mile, has played in more than a dozen junior golf tournaments since March 2004, registering several wins and top-10 finishes while teeing it up in events in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Bermuda. Last summer, while playing the famed East Lake Golf Club, he carded a spectacular 1-under-par 35 on the back nine, and on June 28 he shot 1-over 73 to win a one-day junior event at Bent Water Golf Club in Acworth, Ga.

First Tee at East Lake director Sam Puryear (center) with his two prized pupils, Shelton Davis (left) and Brandon Bradley (right).
(Photo: PGA.com)

One of three children born to a single mother, Shelton aspires to become the first person in his family not only to graduate from high school, but to earn a college degree as well. Of course, he has his eyes set on a career in golf.

"When I get older I want to play college golf," Shelton says. "After college, if I'm good enough, I want to go pro, but if that doesn't work out, I want to have a job involved with golf. I wouldn't mind being a golf teacher or a 'Mr. Sam,' working with kids trying to make a change.

"My mother not graduating from high school or college has inspired me to not follow in the same footsteps. I want to be the first of her kids to be somebody or do something with my life, like graduating high school or college. I don't want to live like this when I get older. I want to have more. I want my kids to have what I didn't have when I was growing up."

Standing a wiry 6-foot-3, Brandon owns a long, flowing swing that produces prodigious drives. He also possesses a feathery short game, although his putting sometimes lets him down. He, too, has enjoyed success in numerous junior events across the country, posting many top-10s although yet to taste victory.

How Brandon came to become a golfer is a story in itself - and also a perfect example of how fate, more specifically a walk to the grocery story for your mother, can turn a life around.

"Brandon was literally walking past the driving range one day and I saw him and said, 'Hey, you wanna hit some golf balls?'" Puryear remembers of his first sight of Brandon. "He said, 'Sure,' and just came over. He couldn't even hit the ball at first. But eventually he starting hitting a few, and he's been here ever since."

Brandon's head is an explosion of thin, shoulder-length braids, which he sometimes pulls into two big ponytails, one above each ear. Combined with his dark brown complexion, the style gives him a most unique appearance, one that is sure not to be common at the Old Course.

But physical appearance is the least of Brandon's worries as his and Shelton's much-anticipated trip nears.

"I can't wait to see the wind," he says. "I can't wait to see the different types of shots you need to hit over there."

We can't wait to see how this trip affects the lives of two young men who dare to dream.

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