Carol Preisinger was just a teenager when players summoned her to look at their golf swings.
The daughter of then-Bent Tree Country Club Head Professional George Preisinger, Sr., already had a keen eye.
“They’d ask me to help them and I would repeat what my dad would say or do,” laughed Preisinger, now lead golf coach at The Landings Golf and Athletic Club in Savannah, Ga., and a 2023 LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame inductee.
“I was still learning from my dad at that time and I didn’t understand the physics of ball flight, but I loved to imitate him and then watch the player hit it better,” she said.
Born in Atlanta, Preisinger grew up in Marietta, Ga., where her father was the head pro at Marietta Country Club. She and her three siblings all played golf and helped at the club alongside their mother, Helen. That continued when they moved to Bent Tree when Carol was 15.
She and her brother Mark played together on the high school boys’ golf team and she would later walk on at the University of Georgia’s women’s golf team after high school. Her oldest brother, George Preisinger, Jr., went to Georgia on a Robert Trent Jones Scholarship, majored in agronomy and worked for 20 years as a golf course superintendent.
Following graduation from Georgia, Carol worked as an assistant pro and competed on the Florida mini-tours. A random conversation with players in her pairing during a tournament round changed Preisinger’s career path.
“I was chit-chatting with Debbie Rhodes-Pinnell and Suzanne Pace [both now LPGA professionals] and Suzanne commented that if I didn’t really enjoy playing professionally, I should look at the LPGA’s teaching division,” she recalled.
“They told me I could join the LPGA and learn how to teach,” she added. “Right then, I knew that was what I wanted to do and that was the route I took.”
Preisinger’s father had encouraged her to enter the PGA Apprentice Program, but she did not aspire to follow in her father’s footsteps as a head club professional.
Teaching golf was different. Preisinger worked with golfers from many different backgrounds and ability levels and with all of them, when they experienced success, it felt like a shared experience.
“As a coach, every time you are able to facilitate that moment when the student’s lightbulb goes off and they get a smile, it’s like all is right with the world,” she said.
Preisinger joined the LPGA in 1988 and connected with Lynn Marriott, who was her instructor in her first Nike Teaching School. When she became an LPGA member, she also met former President Dana Rader, who had an immediate impact on her career.
“Dana was like my big sister and she guided me when it came to the golf industry,” said Preisinger, who became an LPGA Class A member in 1991, and an assistant pro at City Club Marietta (Ga.). Four years later, she became the club’s director of instruction.
Mike Adams also was a key influence when it came to coaching – reinforcing the LPGA’s model that each student is unique. With Adams, and later with instructor Joe Plecker, Preisinger learned to incorporate technological tools in her lessons.
“Connecting with and communicating with people is a huge part of teaching successfully,” she added. “I’m also still learning, especially with all the new technology.”
Preisinger served three two-year terms as Southeast Section President, but her big awakening was the experience of sitting in executive committee meetings and gaining a greater appreciation of how the LPGA operates within the association’s umbrella.
“It’s not just about trying to make a difference for our members and helping them become more educated, rise within the industry to get better jobs or become better coaches,” she said. “You also have the opportunity to help grow the game.”
Preisinger was able to engage with Rader, section presidents, LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan and LPGA staff.
“All of these great minds were there working together and they really wanted our association to be all-encompassing – not just about the LPGA Tour, but also about the foundation and all of our LPGA Professional members who work in the industry as women,” she said.
Preisinger appreciated how the LPGA reached out with support and resources to help its Professionals organization continue to grow and to implement new programs, online education and other improvements for its 1,900 golf industry members.
“We needed the people at the top to help us grow and make the right decisions,” added Preisinger. “It was priceless to be able to sit at the same table with Commissioner Whan two or three times a year. And it’s very fulfilling to believe you can make a difference in an organization.”
Preisinger worked as the director of instruction at Kiawah Island Club in Charleston, S.C. for 17 years, before moving into her current position alongside Plecker, program director of instruction at The Landings and a Top-100 teacher.
She’s come a long way from helping her father teach golf clinics while in high school. Now, with 30-plus years of teaching golf, Preisinger’s resume includes such highlights as two-time LPGA National Teacher of the Year (1998, 2017), 2022 Rolex Ellen Griffin Award winner, GOLF Top 100 Teacher (2005-2022), and LPGA Top-50 Elite (2022).
She hopes to start an LPGA Girls Golf Club at The Landings, and she wants to strengthen a connection with the PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) program, which introduces golf to veterans with disabilities.
Preisinger calls her LPGA Professionals Hall of Fame induction “surreal” -- especially to be among LPGA members she most admires.
“Working in the industry, you just do what you do and love what you do and you don’t do it to end up in a hall of fame or on a top list,” she said. “I’ve loved teaching others for a long time and I hope I will be working until I’m 100.”
)
)
)
)
