Friday takes leap from Lake Hefner to instructor for Graves Golf Schools
By Ken MacLeod
Prominent Oklahoma golf professional Shannon Friday has joined the team at the Graves Golf Schools and will be teaching the single plane golf swing favored by Moe Norman at golf schools across the country.
Friday was previously the head professional at Lake Hefner Golf Course in Oklahoma City, reporting to Director of Golf Aslie Hyden. Friday had been with the Oklahoma City public course system since February of 1997, many of those years at Lincoln Park and the past three at Lake Hefner.
"You’re not going to get a better professional than Shannon," said Tim Graves, co-owner with brother Todd Graves of the Graves Golf Schools, which have headquarters at Coffee Creek in Oklahoma City as well as in Orlando, Fla., but have students across the country and even internationally.
"He’ll be fantastic," Tim Graves said. "I’ve got so much respect for him. To go from 19 years of being behind the counter to doing this is a big change, but he’ll be great."
Friday said the change from running a 36-hole facility to full-time teaching will put him "way out of my confort zone. But that’s good. Their business is growing and I wanted to try something different. My pastor at Life Church did a sermon recently about taking a leap of faith. This is it for me."
Friday said he has known and respected Tim Graves for many years and that adjusting to teaching the single plane swing will not be difficult.
"I actually swung that way through college, then when I got to Lincoln Park everyone was making fun of me so I changed," he said. "But I never hit it again as good as I did in college. To go back to that swing just makes sense."
Graves said after a period of training, Friday will be helping the company run its golf schools across the country. Last year it had 27 three- or five-day schools and more than 150 one- or two-day schools.
"That’s the growth area," Graves said. "We’ve got more than a million people across the country who have shown interest in what we teach. It’s just trying to get to all of them."