Tim Barter: The Journey from club pro to renowned golf coach and popular TV presenter

13/12/2023

PGA Member and Sky Sports Golf presenter, Tim Barter, reflects on a golfing journey that has seen him working with and interviewing the biggest names in the game.

Barter has been part of the Sky Sports Golf fabric for the past 31 years. As a coach, he has worked with the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Darren Clarke and Andrew Coltart. The main constant has been Richard Bland, with whom Barter has enjoyed a 21-year partnership which peaked at The Belfry in 2021 when the Englishman recorded a maiden win on his 478th tour start at the British Masters.

Where do your skills lie as a coach?

I feel I’m at my best coaching club players. I like to keep things simple and easy to understand. I never wanted to coach tour players and I had no ambition to do so. There are some coaches who focus on that elite level – to me they’re like Harley Street specialists whose knowledge allows them to fine-tune the best in the game.

I started as an assistant at The Downshire GC in Berkshire aged 16. At 19 I won my tour card and planned to ease Seve and Co aside but quickly realised I didn’t have the talent to do so. Being ambitious, I turned my attention to becoming a top-class club pro. I worked for a great professional called Roger Mace whose speciality was merchandising and he ran a very successful shop. He was a merchandising lecturer for The PGA so I was brilliantly taught in that respect. I had been lucky enough to work under a guy who taught me how to repair clubs to a high standard, I played well enough to be competitive as a club pro but needed to strengthen my coaching which I considered a weakness.

Whose brains would you pick while you were learning your trade?

I wrote to a lot of the best coaches in the world and asked them whether I could come and watch them work. I’d read books and watched videos but I needed to actually go and see how the best coaches actually did it. To a man, they allowed me to do it. A couple of them charged me, most of them didn’t.

I went to America and watched David Leadbetter, Chuck Cook, Hank Haney and in the UK the likes of John Jacobs, John Sterling and Ian Connelly. I just sat and watched them teach and formulated my own style of teaching. I now felt ready and got my first club pro job at Hartley Wintney in 1983. I quickly got a reputation as a good teacher, which I didn’t really expect. I then got into the county and national set-ups.

What made you stand out?

I think my ability to communicate is probably my best asset. People seem to understand the way I put things and I worked hard at trying to find lots of different ways to put the message across. Everyone learns differently – some by listening and having things explained, others from feelings and images. So that is where I put a lot of my energy and that appears to have been key. I got into TV because they wanted a coaching mind as part of the Sky team.

Who would you have a lesson with?

Butch Harmon – all day long. He is a great friend, but he is a wonderful coach. He has this incredible knowledge but he just keeps it very simple. I listen to people talking about his coaching, and they say it is too simplistic – how can you be too simplistic? I have watched the evolution of people’s swings under him and it is just a gentle improvement. It ends up looking, quite often, reasonably different but it is a gentle process and done in the right way to keep them playable while he works with them. He would be the guy that suits me personally.

If you are a player who likes intricate detail, then Pete Cowen is hard to beat. Pete has an incredible knowledge and he’s taught me a lot about the swing.