University of Delaware Athletics
Women’s Golf Alum Nathalie Sheehan is Taking Advantage of Her Opportunities
7/18/2024 4:32:00 PM | Women's Golf
NEWARK, Del. – As one of the first members of the University of Delaware women's golf program Nathalie (Filler) Sheehan helped build the program from the ground up and set the foundation that has led to three CAA Championships. Since her graduation in 2016, Sheehan has continued to grow the game of golf and is becoming a household name in the sport as both a teaching professional and broadcaster.
Sheehan was a mainstay in the UD lineup as she appeared in all but three tournaments during her four years, including all 21 events throughout her junior and senior campaigns. She became Delaware's first-ever individual medalist when she won the Tignanelli Towson Invitational as a junior with what was then the lowest two-round score in program history. As a senior during the 2015-16 season, Sheehan earned All-CAA Second Team honors after a third-place finish at the CAA Championship where she helped lead the Blue Hens to the program's first-ever conference team title and its first appearance in the NCAA Regionals.
"I think that having had the privilege of being part of a team that was being built, gave me a stronger sense of work ethic and achievement probably than if you had been on a team that had already achieved a lot of great things," Sheehan said. "We just worked really hard as a young team, and it was pretty amazing to see our success and Patty's vision kind of come to life in my senior year, and that all of the hard work had paid off. We went from being a new team and not ranked very high, to being a top-100 program and winning our conference championship, which was pretty crazy to do in five years."
After graduation, following a brief attempt to qualify for the professional tour, Sheehan turned to coaching. A native of Bloomfield, Connecticut, she began to spend her winters in Florida teaching at various golf clubs. That is when she began to experiment with social media and posting practice clips and tips for golfers of all ages.
"I was working on my game a lot still at the time and so I just started recording videos of what I was practicing and what I was working on and posting them on Instagram," Sheehan said. "I was just throwing things at the wall and seeing what would stick, and I got a little bit lucky that I started doing it before everybody was posting golf clips online. There aren't as many females in the golf space, even still, and so I definitely stand out I think as a female who's being professional in the golf space online.
"That evolved into a lot of different things, and I've had a lot of people, luckily, help me along the way both from a branding perspective and just give me different opportunities to learn and grow and different tips and tricks. So that evolved into what my social media is today, which has brought me a lot of other incredible opportunities as well."
Over the past few years, Sheehan has grown her personal brand into quite a following on Instagram and X, which has led to numerous coaching opportunities as well as her role at the Pelican Golf Club which hosts annual premier events such as the LPGA's The ANNIKA, the SEC Women's Championship, the AAC Men's Championship, and the FSGA Girl's Junior Championship.
Sheehan can also be found occasionally caddying for her sister Maisie Filler, a top-ranked collegiate golfer at the University of Florida who plays in some top amateur tournaments. She also works with Golf Pass, the streaming platform for NBC's Golf Channel, where she has her own series of golf tips and other pre-taped content.
All of her experiences coaching and with Golf Pass culminated in May when she was brought in as part of the broadcast team for the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville, Kentucky. As part of ESPN's featured group coverage, Sheehan set up on a practice hole and when the broadcast referred to her, she would do a live demonstration of certain situations that players were facing and what shots they could potentially make.
"It's still a little bit surreal to me thinking back on it, it was so overwhelming at the time that I didn't even really soak it all in, but I got to work with so many amazing commentators," Sheehan said.
With all of the work that she is doing, including at some of the highest levels of the sport, Sheehan remains in touch with her coaches at Delaware, Patty Post and Brendon Post. While she still considers them to be mentors and credits them with having so much influence on her golf career, the relationship is now one between peers.
"Patty and I talk all the time and I have so much respect for her," Sheehan said. "As a coach she really created an incredible program at Delaware from scratch and built it up to winning CAAs my senior year and going to regionals and the whole deal. I think it was really due to her instilling work ethic and having such a clear plan for all of us, and even though sometimes it would be irritating because some of our practices were really challenging, she made us much better players. I still use a lot of the stuff that I learned from her and from Brendon with students that I teach now.
"I have so much respect for them, and Patty especially for what she's done with the program there. She helped me become a better person, not just a better golfer in my time spent at Delaware."
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