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The Skillest PodcastAuthor: Skillest
The Skilly Pod is for golfers and coaches who care about getting better on and off the course.Hosted by Baden Schaff and Alex Clapp, the show covers everything from game improvement and coaching insights to whats actually happening in golf right now.Its real conversations, practical advice, and plenty of fun along the way.Each episode mixes: Honest takes on improving your game Coaching insights from two of the best in the business Current events in golf Interviews with some of the biggest names in the game No fluff. Just better golf, better thinking, and a few laughs along the way. Language: en-us Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Want a big coaching biz? Steve Astle to the rescue!
Wednesday, 16 September, 2026
Steve Astle joins Baden and Clappy for an unscripted, end-of-season riff on where golf coaching is headed. Steve is one of the most influential figures in the industry, and his influence is especially pronounced in how coaches build and scale their businesses online, not just his track record coaching in person. He's the founder of Golf Coaching Business, has been working with Skillest for nine to ten years, and has spent well over a decade helping coaches turn scattered one-off lessons into structured, recurring revenue. Steve traces his own journey from a public-course teaching pro filming students on VHS to becoming what he calls "a lighthouse in the industry" during COVID, when he built a 1,000-coach Facebook community almost overnight and started running weekly business-development calls for coaches. That period is also where he met and mentored Clappy, helping him move off charging £30 a lesson and into a subscription-based coaching model.The conversation covers why hybrid (in-person plus online) coaching is now the norm, why subscription-based programs beat one-off lesson packs (Steve calls this his single biggest influence on the industry, shifting coaches from "six-for-five" pricing to committed programs), and why personal brand and social presence have become non-negotiable for growing a coaching business. A major thread is AI: how tools like Claude and MCP integrations with Skillest are letting coaches automate lesson prep, pull player stats and Arccos data, and surface previously hidden information, while all three agree AI should add value to a coach's business rather than replace the human relationship at its core. Steve closes with his "5 Rs" framework for a durable coaching business (recruit, results, relationships, retention, reflection) and argues that despite every technology shift, people still buy from people.
