‘Cheaper than a therapist’: Women bring unique G2 golf school to the Myrtle Beach market
Elizabeth Granahan has come to the Grand Strand to be a golf instructor.
But because of her teaching philosophy of nurturing long-term relationships to facilitate learning and improvement, she can serve multiple roles for a student.
“It’s kind of like a bartender or your hairdresser sometimes. . . . Some guys tell me I’m much cheaper than a therapist and I’m much more fun,” Granahan joked.
In order to be closer to family, the groundbreaking instructor and her life and business partner have moved their golf school from Philadelphia to the Myrtle Beach market, and she’ll now try to make area residents seeking instruction feel like they are family.
“It’s a long-term teaching and coaching relationship, and it’s that relationship that really helps people get better,” Granahan said. “Golf is golf, but it’s the personalities and relationships that really make it a lot of fun.”
The G2 Golf Group school has a new home at Farmstead Golf Links in Calabash, N.C., on the back side of its large driving range.
G2 is partners Granahan and Michele Gajderowicz, and the name emanates from the first letter of their last names.
Granahan is G2’s president and director of instruction, and Gajderowicz is the CEO and managing partner who handles business details including operations and marketing.
“Every aspect of the business is really her, and she really makes my life easy,” Granahan said of Gajderowicz. “I just have to coach and teach.”
Settling at Farmstead
They have come with credentials, including some firsts for a female golf professional and instructor.
In 2009, Granahan became the first woman to receive the Philadelphia PGA’s Teacher of the Year Award in the PGA of America section’s 100-year history, and she remains the only woman to serve as a professional at prestigious Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which has hosted five U.S. Opens.
Granahan has been a PGA of America Class A professional since 1998 and was named a Top 100 Clubfitter by Golf Digest, and a Top 50 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional by the Golf Range Association of America.
For her part, Gajderowicz has received several national and regional business awards.
The women researched places to work before moving.
They like the continued growth of the area, Farmstead’s mix of members and public play, the club’s large practice facility – a couple short target greens have been added for the school – the existing staff headed by director of golf Harriss D’Antignac, and the course and nearby sister course Meadowlands Golf Club being family-owned – by the McLamb family.
“We’re really looking forward to making this a long-term home,” Gajderowicz said. “The mobile teaching part is great and we love it and we’re glad to have it, but we’re hoping to . . . build something similar to what we had in Pennsylvania.”
G2 was founded in 2010 and moved from a building at a private club around Philadelphia. It had 20 instructors at one time.
It is now a mobile academy, as a large lifted golf cart is used as a mobile lab in instruction. A launch monitor, a pair of high-speed Ethernet cameras, and a connected laptop computer are all powered by solar panels that are transported on the cart.
“It’s kind of a beast,” Granahan said.
Forging a career
As a student at Rutgers University, Granahan was planning to attend med school to become a veterinarian. Then she was invited to play golf. A competitive athlete in multiple sports growing up, Granahan immediately took to the game.
“I was hooked when I started playing,” said Granahan, who immediately began inquiring about jobs in the field and the best places to work.
Merion Golf Club head pro Jim Muething gave Granahan a great opportunity by hiring her as an assistant pro and became a mentor. One of her early pro mentors recognized her passion for teaching and recommended she focus on doing that full time.
“I’ve spent my entire career learning and educating myself in every discipline that you need to become a better player, whether it’s fitness, nutrition, playing, motor learning, equipment,” Granahan said. “I’m a specialist in teaching and coaching and that’s how all my time and energy is spent becoming better every year.”
Granahan is part of a women’s leadership platform that advises young female professionals, and she sees some progress with Suzy Whaley becoming the first female PGA of America president from 2018-20, and Georgetown native and Coastal Carolina employee Paige Cribb becoming the first female Carolinas PGA Section president in 2018.
“I don’t go about these things wanting to be the first woman to do these things . . . and still we’re blazing a trail and it’s getting better,” Granahan said. “I think there are a lot more teachers, a lot more women who are general managers and directors of golf and head professionals so it’s changing, though we still have some work to do and I think we’re going to keep moving forward.”
Granahan said her clientele in recent years has been 85 percent men between the ages of 35-70, 10 percent women and 5 percent juniors. “I appreciate the male population who trust me with their game and it doesn’t matter to a lot of them,” Granahan said. “Whoever is going to make them better is who they’re going to go to.”
Her own style
Granahan begins instructing a student with skills challenges that assess a player’s strengths and weaknesses and determine what most needs to improve.
Those continue throughout her instruction with a student, as she tries to make learning fun, and because golf is a skill development game she focuses on a long-term plan for students to improve.
“It’s setting out that road map for people and having them understand that they can probably get someplace they’ve never been before, or didn’t even know the goals that were out there or what kind of player they could become because no one has ever guided them that way before,” Granahan said. “It’s that plan and me guiding people.”
The relationships are fostered through her time giving instruction and by traveling to play in multiple-day pro-ams in and outside of the U.S. with Gajderowicz and groups of her students. “That really takes the relationship to the next level,” Granahan said.
That is something regularly done by golf pros at private clubs with members, but isn’t commonly done by instructors with their students.
“It’s about me providing what the student needs at any particular moment whether it’s information, whether it’s a pep talk, whatever I can provide,” Granahan said. “That’s the kind of relationship I’m looking for and that’s why it works.
“My goal is to have everybody enjoy golf more and improve their skills.”
Each student has their own page on a website, where G2 keeps a video catalogue of lessons to document progress and has drills and homework prior to the next lesson.
“Some people forget kind of where they came from and how well they’re really doing, so it’s great to have that chronicled the whole way along,” Granahan said, “and it’s great for them to have an accounting of everything we’ve done.”
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 1:28 PM.
