About Grooves Golf

Improving The Everyday Golfer

Our mission is to help golfers shoot lower scores through structured coaching and training programmes with on course performance at the forefront of our mind. We aim to enhance every player’s golfing experience by helping them to develop the skills and strategies needed to excel. Our ultimate goal is to create a learning community that enables all clients to get fun and enjoyment from every experience.

— Rob Watkins & Craig Jones, Founders

Our Story

Grooves Golf was founded in 2018 by best friends & PGA Professionals Rob Watkins and Craig Jones. With over 25 years of experience in the golf industry between us, we have had great success with the majority of our students. We are also honest enough to admit that we have had a few failures along the way and wanted to found a company that changed this. A company built on a set of core beliefs that should see everyone improve. But why? Let’s find out…..We truly believe we are in a results based business and it seemed criminal to us that the golf industry works on a service/time approach where the professional is rarely held accountable for the result following the lesson. It seems the norm is: you pay for your one hour of time with an instructor, you get told what is wrong with your swing and what to work on (perhaps some drills if you’re lucky) and you are left to practice.

All of the lesson work is done on the driving range (where it matters, right?!) and you commit hours and hours of your time trying to ingrain that new swing move. You feel like you make great progress only for it to completely abandon you on the golf course during the weekend competition. Back to the range, back to the lesson tee and so the search for improvement continues. We have heard of countless stories of golfers investing a lot of time (and money) on trying to improve with absolutely no result. Here at Grooves Golf our beliefs are strongly opposed to this institutionalised way of teaching, and we are committed to offering holistic player development programmes to help our students make long lasting improvements.

Meet The Team

CRAIG JONES

Craig has worked at some of the leading golf facilities, coaching thousands of golfers of all abilities. Craig uses his vast experience combined with the world’s leading technology to make sure every golfer he coaches gets the best advice possible.

HEAD PGA PROFESSIONAL

ROB WATKINS

Rob has been coaching golfers of all abilities and ages for over 15 years and in that time has also acquired a huge amount knowledge from some of the most well known coaches in the world. He puts pupil understanding first and communicates his point in a relaxed and easy to follow way.

HEAD PGA PROFESSIONAL

Steph's determined to get more ladies and juniors into the game. With 10 years coaching experience she is looking to inspire the next generation of junior golfers as well as helping ladies get into the game too. Steph is passionate about breaking down the old myth of golf being an 'old man's sport'.

PGA PROFESSIONAL

STEPH JONES

NATHAN STEAD

Nathan has been coaching golf for nearly 25 years, delivering lessons to a vast array of abilities from professionals to complete beginners. Nathan also has a very keen interest in all facets of custom fitting from single items to full bag fits, giving his customers the best equipment for their game.

PGA PROFESSIONAL

RICHARD HUDSON

Richard has been coaching golf for over 40 years and is popular with beginners and experienced players alike. As a former European Tour Player he brings with him a vast array of experience which he enjoys passing onto his students during his coaching sessions.

PGA PROFESSIONAL

CHRIS PARKER

Chris has been coaching golf for nearly 25 years and is a senior Leadbetter accredited instructor, having worked for David Leadbetter for 21 years. Chris focuses on the holistic approach and uniquely tailors his coaching for the individual needs of the player.

PGA PROFESSIONAL

Our Facilites

  • Indoor

    Work on your game whatever the weather with some of the best facilities available at our newly located indoor sim bays at Rudding Park Golf Academy. With ball flight and club data courtesy of Trackman 4, we can analyse your technique quickly and accurately to make quick and long lasting changes.

  • Outdoor

    Our facility at Rudding Park Golf Academy includes a floodlit 18 bay driving range, putting green, two chipping areas with bunkers and a 100 yard pitching hole — plenty to keep even the keenest of golfers busy for hours on end. Also test yourself on the tricky Repton short course with holes ranging from 70 yards to 140 yards.

  • Technology

    Why guess when you can measure! We don’t charge extra for the use of technology in our coaching sessions - it’s included because we don’t want to make any assumptions on your game. Technology we use includes Trackman 4, HackMotion Wrist Sensor, Blast Motion Sensor and deWiz swing modifier.

Five years ago we had a gentleman called John get in touch with us. John (like many of us) was frustrated with his golf game and this wasn’t for lack of trying! Click the button to hear about John and see if it strikes a chord with your own game?!