“More bookings, more lessons, more clients and it’s free – I wish I’d joined PGA PLAY sooner.”

How easy was it to join PGA PLAY?

Using the platform is simple which is a great start. The way they've laid it out is good in the sense that they have different categories that you can fill in - what you specialise in, your facilities, the technology you have, your qualifications and pricing.

It helps me massively that I work at a golf club with a par 3 course, a short course and a large driving range with floodlights and heaters.

Another benefit is that the customer will arrive and the range is right there whereas a Pro at a private club might have to walk them out there. We are able to coach back-to-back lessons when we are busy and customers can arrive early and get warmed up so we are quite lucky with our place of business.

Your qualifications are also key, but I think customers are looking at what you can offer in terms of the product at the club that you work at.

Location is crucial for us, we are based in Hertfordshire, just outside London, so there is housing galore around here and you are going to have a lot people coming out of London looking for lessons. There are a lot of golfers and there are a lot of people looking to play and get into golf and, if people are going to search for a golf lesson and the PGA PLAY platform comes straight up at the top of the search results, then that's perfect. As a pro, you definitely need to be on it.

What made you sign up?

It was one of the other professionals at Chesfield Downs who mentioned it to me. I'll be honest, I didn’t really know about it. I wish I had known about the PGA PLAY website sooner as I only signed up at the back end of last year - so, I have potentially missed out on loads of business.

I am now a lot more interested in making sure that I know about these things from source and not ignoring the communications that I am sent through. It gets you more money, more lessons and, for a pro who isn’t as busy, maybe a younger Professional or someone who has gone to a new club and is trying to build a diary, those extra lessons a month are huge. And it's all for free, I wish I’d known about it sooner.

What are your most popular lessons?

The majority of my lessons are 45 minutes to an hour with the split fairly similar. What I have noticed with PGA PLAY is that there are a lot of beginners and a lot of people getting back into the game after maybe a long layoff. The platform is definitely attracting the less experienced or beginner golfer. There is the person who has been invited on a golf trip and needs a few lessons or they are looking to get back into golf after a few years away from the game and they need a few lessons to get going again. So, I think it is for those who don’t have that relationship with a local golf coach, or golf club, and it’s for golfers who will go straight online.

How did you settle on your pricing strategy?

I have worked at Chesfield Downs for years and we have three PGA Professionals and we all charge the same amount. The lesson prices that we have now have been developed over the years. There is a little bit of local competition from other local coaches, but we do benefit from the facilities that we can offer and where we are located. Ultimately, I think people are going to buy on location and price so having the price on there is vital because people need to know how much they are going to pay.

What advice would you give to other pros considering signing up?

What I would say to a fellow professional, if you aren’t on PGA PLAY, it doesn’t make sense to me because it is a free service and you don’t have to do any marketing. You simply fill the details out and The PGA do all the marketing and leg work for you and you then get the enquiries off the back of it.

It helps to be quick and on top of your emails when you are replying to queries – I try to get back to an enquiry within at least a couple of hours. And it is how you handle that enquiry, how you book them in, how you contact them – do you call them, do you email them? I get in touch with them via the same route that they contacted me. In an ideal world you would call as it is much more personal, and you can book them in there and then. But someone might have emailed you as they might not want a phone call. If I am filling in something online, I don’t want a phone call back because I'll be teaching. My number is on the profile so, if they want to call and discuss the session, then they can call. There are both options there for you.