Born and raised in Federal Way, Wash., Sara started playing golf at age eight at Twin Lakes Golf and Country Club. She was a four-year letterman on the boy’s high school team before signing on to play for the Oregon State University women’s golf team.
Sara graduated from OSU with a BS in Zoology, but despite the specialized degree she became the assistant coach for OSU’s women’s golf team for two years. After two years, she was offered the head coach position at the University of San Francisco, where for the next eight years she developed a consistent top-25 ranked program.
In 2005, Sara returned to the Pacific Northwest to begin working at Tacoma Country and Golf Club. She earned her Class A PGA Membership in 2009, and the accolades started to roll in: she was named the 2011 and 2013 WWCPGA Assistant Golf Professional of the Year; 2017 WWCPGA Player Development Award Winner; 2015 and 2019 PNWPGA Youth Player Development Award Winner. You get the idea.
In 2017, Sara and her husband Chris Griffin, who is also a PGA Professional and was working alongside Sara at Tacoma Country and Golf Club at the time, left the club to launch their own teaching facility, Griffin Golf.
Located in Sumner, Wash., Griffin Golf is an indoor golf studio that ensures you can work on your game year round. The studio features a putting green, Foresight Sports Simulator and V1 Sports Video Software.
Griffin Golf quickly developed a reputation for introducing beginners and young people to the game.
“We saw an immediate need to provide people an introduction to the game,” Sara said. “If we want to grow the game, we have to make it accessible to everyone, and take away the intimidation factor. It really is as simple as that.”
Sara created programs specifically designed for women beginners. Griffin Golf’s “Ladies Boot Camp” is a two-hour introductory course that covers the basics – what each of the golf clubs do, what to wear on the course, definition of golf terms, etc.
“We started the boot camps in 2017, and were doing just three a year,” Sara says. “They’ve become so popular that now we’re doing two each month.”
Sara also conducts Ladies Clinics, for women golfers of all abilities. There are three per month, and each week they discuss a new topic (grip, posture, putting, driving, etc.) and why each is important to playing the game. Then on the fourth week the students go out to a course and do the “Operation 36” method of introduction to playing – each student plays from their own respective yardage (no matter what it is) and attempts to shoot even par from that yardage for nine holes.
“It’s so great to see the ladies flourish in these clinics,” Sara says. “They really blossom, and help other beginners get into the game as well.”
Griffin Golf has partnered with two nearby golf courses (Allenmore and High Cedars) to conduct the clinics.
Other programs offered at Griffin Golf include Birdie Basics, for kids age 3-6; Operation 36, for youth age 7-14; LTD Program, for high school players wanting to advance to the next competitive level; and PGA Family Golf, which is open to the entire family to compete PGA Jr. League team style.
Sara is a certified U.S. Kids Golf Coach, has been an instructor in the PGA Jr. League since it started, and in 2019 was named a Top 50 Operation 36 Coach.
“I never left golf,” she says. “I considered doing other things with my life, but the game was always calling me. It’s been an amazing ride.”
For information on Griffin Golf, visit TeamGriffinGolf.com.