Epson Tour athlete Hannah Gregg had some fun at the FireKeepers Casino Hotel Championship, looking at No. 18 of Battle Creek Country Club from a different angle while caddying for the Epson Tour’s Chief Business and Operating Officer, Jody Brothers. Read more about Gregg below:
Gregg Leans on Social Media and Small Business to Support Dreams
Being a professional athlete in any sport is a grind, and those playing on the Epson Tour know it all too well. Pursuing their dreams of playing on the LPGA Tour, athletes put their blood, sweat, tears and money into moving on to the biggest stage in women’s golf. Thanks to generous sponsors like the Seiko Epson Corporation and Accenture, the monetary commitment is less than in years past, but the women on the Epson Tour are still paying $400 in entry fees each week while their male counterparts on the Korn Ferry Tour pay nothing.
Hannah Gregg is one of the athletes who got creative in finding a way to fund her journey on the road to the LPGA. When graduating college and thinking about what she was going to do next, Gregg was shocked to hear what her friends had to say about the professional golf life.
“I talked to a few of my friends who had already turned pro, and they said the hardest thing by far was funding golf long enough to make it big. I thought it was going to be being away from home all the time or living out of a suitcase, but everyone I talked to said the first thing you have to focus on is marketing yourself and finding the funds,” said Gregg. “I graduated in 2018 and Instagram influencing had just started to become a thing, so I started showing my college golf journey and plans and it started growing.
“Part of it was the consistency of my posting and part of it was that people were interested because no one really talks about the golf before the LPGA Tour. People didn’t really know that mini-tour golf was a thing, and it just kind of blew up.”
What started as using social media platforms as a bargaining chip, selling ad space on her page in exchange for sponsorship, has turned into growing a business on top of running her social media accounts. Seeing how much money the brands she was advertising were making, the California native decided she wanted to sell her own product, start her own business and promote something in which she believes. That’s when Short Game Gains was created, a company that sells practice aids to help improve one’s game around the greens.
“When Covid-19 came around and there were no tournaments to play in, I was thinking ‘this is the time’,” said Gregg. “My boyfriend is also very interested in the short game and has a solid social media following, so we decided to pause professional golf and put everything we had into Short Game Gains.”
When it comes to growing a following on social media, on both her personal (133K) and business page (20K), Gregg has just one piece of advice – fail until you succeed.
“When I started doing [social media], it was a bonus,” said Gregg. “People were surprised that I was an athlete sharing the journey, and it’s much more common now. Brands and sponsors are expecting you to do that, so the faster you can start doing it and growing it, the bigger of an advantage that you have.
“The only advice I can give is that you have to be bad at it first to be good at it. You’ll figure it out, but have you have to do some awkward and embarrassing stuff first.”
)
)
)
)
