“I’ve already had several leads through PGA Play – I should have signed up sooner”

26/06/2025

A chance meeting during a lesson provided the encouragement required for Scott Currie, PGA Professional at Rossendale, in Lancashire, to completing his PGA Play profile – and the bookings are already coming

Scott Currie just needed a few nudges from a fellow PGA Member and one of his students to get himself set up on PGA Play – the platform where golfers can locate golf lessons and coaching near them.

In a matter of weeks, Currie has had several lesson bookings at Golf Kingdom in Rossendale. Here, he talks about how easy it was to get started and the benefits that fellow members can enjoy on PGA Play.

What made you join PGA Play?

A colleague of mine had been talking to me to advise me to get into PGA Play for about a year or so, and I hadn’t really done anything. I'd started the profile on it, but I never really finished it off.

And then in a lesson one day with a gentleman called Matt Reed, (I did) the usual thing, introducing yourself and talking, asking what you do for a living. He said I work for The PGA - the company that do PGA Play!

He said, ‘Why are you not on it? I've come to you for a lesson and you're not on it!’

He explained it all to me, and he said they put in all the areas, and people type in lessons in Rossendale, which is where I am, and it'll come up. He gave me a little bit of help with the profile, because they do fill it in themselves, but the knack is just do a little bit yourself and change some things.

Straight away, within couple of days being live, they started to come through.

My site is run by American Golf, so we've got a fairly optimised website anyway, so we do get a lot of footfall through it. But I thought I'll see how this goes. In about four or five weeks, I've had six or seven leads from it coming through PGA Play.

How easy is it for PGA Professionals to put themselves on PGA Play?

It’s just spending a bit of time to put your profile on there, a bit about you. There are bits to click about what you offer coaching wise, whether you offer video, whether you offer indoor or outdoor coaching.

It's really just a little bit of time for the PGA Professionals to spend, which I hadn't spent on it, and then obviously it's decided to click through from there.

It’s a thumbs up from me in the last four weeks.

Do you wish you had joined it sooner?

I remember we were at Royal Liverpool for The Open two years ago, and that's when my colleague said, ‘Listen, you need to get on this’, and he was a club professional and not doing a lot of lessons. He said he was getting stuff through it, and I just said ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever’.

I left it at that, but it’s been a good thing.

It's one of the benefits that The PGA offer for our membership. It just takes 10 minutes of your time setting it up.

- Scott Currie

Have you spoken to visitors to Rossendale about PGA Play?

Each one that has come through PGA Play, I've asked out of interest, ‘How did you arrive at that?’

As once they click onto it, you get an email through with all their details. With each and every one that has come through, I have asked what their journey was like coming through, to find out and get that little bit of information on why they have gone that way.

All of them have said the first thing that came up was PGA Play on the search engine, and then they click through from that to the profiles, and it shows accordingly from there.

As PGA Play also lists custom fitting centres, have you found other benefits of PGA Play in this regard?

We’re an American Golf site but, believe it not, American Golf have shut the shop on our site. So we still have a fitting bay, but we don't have a shop. But because we don't have a shop, some people don’t know the fitting bay is there. I wouldn't be carrying any of the fitting out anyway. I didn't when we had the shop there. So that doesn't really apply to me.

But it would definitely benefit other PGA Professionals. That would benefit other people who were offering the custom fitting and lessons as well.

How much would you encourage other PGA Professionals to join PGA Play?

Like Matt said to me, it’s free! You’d be daft not to go on it and that's been the realisation for me a year later. Why did I not carry on filling this in? It’s all for free. It's one of the benefits that The PGA offer for our membership. It just takes 10 minutes of your time setting it up.

After being a PGA Professional for over 30 years, could PGA Play be a gamechanger?

I'm on a driving range, so the footfall is quite big, so it's coming through all the time. I just look at it as an additional thing. I know that certain clients have come via PGA Play and I've asked each of them how they went down that route. It's another added thing for me.

How much has the geographical location aspect of PGA Play helped?

I'm no expert on optimisation, but I presume the more hits you get on it, the more you get it spread around a little bit. I've been at Golf Kingdom now for three years, I very rarely take phone calls.

Everyone just seems to email, which is fine, because I never answer the phone when I'm teaching. So, everyone just seems to be going down that route of Google search and finding things that way on email.”

For PGA Members looking to expand their reach and connect with more golfers who are looking for a coach or custom fitter, create your PGA Profile now by clicking here.