Elevate your game and hit with purpose in just six simple steps

Mark Townsend 02 May 2025

Having played golf for 45 years, the most ridiculous aspect of my efforts to get better is that I haven’t had a lesson for at least a third of that time.

The total number of lessons would still be in single figures, which is a) odd given how much golf I can play, watch, and dream about, and b) even odder as I’ve never become any better since I was 17.

There’s very little reason for it. I’ve been a member of a golf club pretty much all of my teenage and adult life, at some great courses with similarly outstanding pros.

The only thing I can liken it to is spending the past four years working in the lounge of a gym, and the prospect of venturing downstairs to use the thousands of pounds’ worth of equipment and ‘free’ classes is as likely as belting 50 balls under the watchful eye of my local PGA pro.

Thankfully, not everyone is like me, and a golfing mate asked if I fancied sharing a few lessons. And, hey presto, the lid has come off to finally hitting a golf ball something like that teenager.

Double up

Sharing a lesson is already up there in my top 10 things to do in golf. It takes the heat off you, hitting balls for an hour can be physically and mentally tiring, given you’re generally doing something different and that something is often quite hard to grasp.

You’ll be invested in your mate’s lesson too; you can get the benefit of the pro’s wisdom for their particular shortcomings, and you can share in each other’s improvements.

Ask around

We all have a good idea of who the good teaching pros are in the area and who people talk about in glowing terms. Mark Pinkett’s name pops up in all sorts of places in the Leeds area, and he’s renowned as an outstanding coach, something we can verify just from one lesson in.

In the space of 10 minutes, teaching my mate, he had kept an eye on my half-arsed routine and equally lazy swing so he could hit the ground running when it came to my turn.

Social media doesn’t compare

None of the advice was anything I’d been told or considered before. I follow all manner of coaches on social media, quite often scurry away to try things, and, a few days later, am clicking on something altogether different.

Hitting balls in front of someone who has taught the game at a very high level for 30-plus years knocks spots off anyone who you think might ‘cure’ you in 90 seconds.

Something to work on

This is probably the best bit of the whole thing. When you’re lost, six holes in to a round and mentally scrabbling around for something to hold on to, this offers the glue that can hold you slightly together.

There’s a pre-shot routine to take your mind away from things, and there’s the security that at least now you know what works, whereas previously it might be down to a bit of chance, and things come and go very quickly.

Having spent the past 10 years hitting the ball maybe with an apex of, at best, 40 feet, I tell myself and others who might be at a loose end how I like to punch it. I use words like ‘trap it’ when the simple truth is that I can’t actually do it.

Hit balls with purpose

The next best part is to hit balls and not get bored, frustrated, scared and all the other unhelpful feelings and thoughts that can rise when trying to find a groove.

Now you have someone who takes as much pleasure in your ability to hit one out the middle, someone to tell you when you’re getting lazy again and to keep slipping in the odd nugget to keep you at it.

Just do it

Don’t put this off any longer. You know it makes sense and, if you can find the right pro, it will be worth every penny, which, when you’re splitting the cost, makes it a very appealing package.

My first thought walking out was how I’ve just wasted the past 20 years just playing at getting better, our next thought was when we could play next, which turned into the following day.