Pro Golf Coach: Instructor Guide

For instructors · iPhone and iPad · Build 17 · November 7, 2026

Pro Golf Coach keeps your students, lessons, homework, practice logs, messages and swing videos in one place, and lets students book your open times. This guide goes from your first sign-in to the everyday jobs. Lesson booking has its own setup steps, which take about ten minutes once.

Your home screen

Where	What it does
Your photo or initials, top left	A menu: Change Photo, Lesson Bookings, Recently Removed (shown when you have removed a student), your PGA number, Account and Sign Out
+, top right	Add a new student
Messages tile	Every message your students have sent you, newest first
Announcements tile	Tips and exercises that go to all your students at once
Lesson Bookings tile	Your upcoming lessons, and your calendar and booking settings
Students list and the search bar at the bottom	Tap a student to open their page

A small number on a tile means unread items. The same count shows on the app icon.

First steps

1. Sign in. New instructor accounts are approved before they can add students, and until then you see Pending approval. Add your PGA number from the menu at the top left if you want it shown to your students.
2. Allow notifications when the app asks, so you hear about new messages, bookings and cancelled lessons right away.
3. Check your settings. Tap your photo, then Account, then Device Settings. Each line shows a green check or an orange warning, with a button that takes you to the right place in Settings. The full written guide is one tap away from there (Open the Full Guide) and is on the website, jms-solutions.biz.
4. Set up lesson booking (the sections further down). Until you do, the card Let students book lessons stays at the top of your home screen.

Adding a student and inviting them

1. Tap + at the top right. Fill in the student’s details: name, contact info, age, handicap, experience level, goals, learning style, strengths and weaknesses, and equipment. Only the name is required, and you can come back and edit any of it later with the Edit button on the student’s page.
2. Save. The app shows the student’s 6-letter invite code. Tap Share Invite to send it by text or email.
3. Your student downloads the app, taps Sign Up, chooses Student, and enters the code on the next screen. Their name on your list then shows Linked.
4. You can bring the code back up any time from the student’s page: the row Invite Student to App becomes Student Linked once they have joined.

You can work with a student before they join the app: you can log lessons for them. Private messages, booking and their own practice logs start once they have joined.

A student’s page

Tap a student on your home screen.

• Latest message at the top shows the newest message in your private thread. Tap it to open the conversation.
• Start Here Next Time is the headline card: the starting point you wrote after the last lesson, with the date, what you worked on, the swing thought, the progress stars and the homework. Open it in the five minutes before a lesson starts.
• Log New Lesson, Lesson History, Practice Logs, Videos and Private Message are the working rows. Practice Logs shows the practice sessions the student has logged.
• Skills Progress shows four categories (Full Swing, Short Game, Putting and Course Management) with a percentage for each. Tap the section to open the skills in each category, then tap a skill to set it to Not Started, Learning, Developing, Consistent or Mastered. The percentages update by themselves.
• Below that are the student’s profile, goals, strengths and weaknesses and your coaching notes, and Remove Student.

Logging a lesson

On the student’s page tap Log New Lesson.

1. Set the Date, then fill in What We Worked On and the Main Swing Thought (the one thing to remember).
2. Give a Progress rating in stars.
3. Tap Add Assignment for each piece of homework. Choose a Routine (for example Alignment Drill, Half-Swing Drill or Tempo Drill), tick the Clubs to use, and add a note such as “10 balls each”. Your student sees these assignments and can log practice against them.
4. Use Other Homework Notes for anything else for the week.
5. Last, write What to check / continue with next time. This becomes the Start Here Next Time card the next time you open the student’s page.
6. Save. Open Lesson History to look back at earlier lessons, edit one, or delete one.

Practice logs

Students log their own practice from their home screen (assignment, clubs, how long, how it went, notes). You see every entry under Practice Logs on their page. A student can fix a mistake by tapping an entry and editing it; entries they changed show a small Edited by student note on your screen, so you know the entry is not as first logged. A student can also delete their own entry, and it disappears for you too.

Announcements to all your students

1. Tap the Announcements tile, then +.
2. Choose the Type (a tip or an exercise), add a Title and Details. For an exercise you can attach a routine and clubs.
3. Save. Every student linked to you sees it, and the Announcements tile shows a count on their phone until they open it.

Students can tap Reply on an announcement to message you. To change one, tap it. To delete one, swipe it to the left: it disappears for every student, and that can’t be undone. To write to just one student, use Private Message on their page instead.

Messages

• The Messages tile on your home screen lists the conversations, newest first. Open a student, type in Write a message… and tap the arrow.
• A new message arrives as a notification: New message from and the student’s first name. The text of the message is not shown in the notification.
• To delete a message, press and hold it, or tap Select to choose several. It disappears from the student’s screen too, and that can’t be undone.

Swing videos and markup

Both you and your students can add videos. On a student’s page tap Videos.

1. Tap Add Video and pick a recording. Even a long recording with several swings works: the app listens and looks for each swing, and uploads just a short clip of each. Slo-mo recordings (120 fps or more) give the smoothest slow motion. You can adjust where a clip starts and ends, add a note, or choose Upload the Whole Video Instead. Each clip shows about how big it will be, and the screen shows progress while it uploads: keep the app open until it finishes. Videos are limited to 50 MB each.
2. Open a video to watch it, step it frame by frame, and read and write comments. Tap a comment’s time to jump to that moment.
3. To mark up a frame, pause on it and tap the pencil. Draw a line, arrow, circle or freehand, then tap Done. Add a comment if you like, or send the drawing on its own, then tap Send. You can change your own comment later with Edit and Repost.
4. Above the frame controls, Keep on screen makes a drawing stay in place while the video plays. It stays exactly where you put it, so it works as a fixed marker: draw a circle around the student’s head, and if the head moves out of the circle during the swing, everyone sees it. Choose how long it stays: just this frame, 2, 3, 5, 10 or 20 seconds, to the end of the video, or the whole video.
5. To see a drawing, tap that comment’s time and press play. Comments with a drawing that stays up show a small pin next to the time. If you leave a video with a drawing you haven’t sent, the app asks whether to discard it.

The student gets a notification when you add a video, comment or mark one up (“Mike marked up your swing video”). Several comments in a row on one video, within about three minutes, give one notification, not one each. Deleting a video removes it, with its comments, for both of you.

Notifications and the number on the app icon

What happens	What you see
A student sends you a message	New message from Throw
A student books a lesson	Throw booked a lesson: Tuesday, Nov 3 at 10:00 AM (in person)
A student cancels a lesson	Throw cancelled their lesson on Tuesday, Nov 3 at 10:00 AM
A student adds a video	Throw added a swing video
A student comments on a video	Throw commented on a swing video

The number on the app icon counts your unread messages. Reading them in the app clears it. If notifications don’t arrive, or only say “Notification”, open Account, then Device Settings.

Lesson booking: how it works

• You keep one calendar on your iPhone called Golf Lessons. Each event on it is a stretch of time you can teach.
• The app reads that calendar and your other calendars, takes away the times you are busy, and shares only the leftover open times with your students. It never uploads event titles or details.
• A student picks In Person or Virtual, a day and a time, and taps Book. The lesson is booked at once, and nobody else can take the same time.
• The lesson shows up on your Lesson Bookings screen and on the calendar you choose, and you get a notification.
• Payment is not in the app. You and your students handle it directly.
• Your open times refresh when you open the app, when your calendar changes, and in the background. The circular arrow at the top right of Calendar & Availability refreshes them on the spot.

Booking setup checklist

☐ Step 1: turn on calendar access
☐ Step 2: choose your Golf Lessons calendar
☐ Step 3: put your open times on it
☐ Step 4: set your default place, video link and lesson settings
☐ Step 5: choose where booked lessons go
☐ Step 6: check what students can book

Step 1: Turn on calendar access

1. At the top of your home screen is a card titled Let students book lessons.
2. Tap Turn On Calendar, then Allow Full Access.

The app shares only your open times, never your event details. It needs Full Access (not “Add Events Only”) because it has to read when you are busy.

If you tapped “Don’t Allow”, the card says Calendar access is off. Tap Open Settings, then Calendars, and choose Full Access. Return to the app and the card updates by itself. Account, then Device Settings checks this too.

Once access is on, the card changes to Choose Your Calendar and stays until you finish Step 2.

Step 2: Your Golf Lessons calendar

Only events on this one calendar are treated as open teaching times, so keep personal appointments off it.

• You already have a calendar named Golf Lessons: the app picks it for you and the card disappears. Nothing to do.
• You don’t: tap Choose Your Calendar (or go to Lesson Bookings, then Calendar & Availability) and tap Create a “Golf Lessons” Calendar. The app tries your phone’s main account first, then iCloud.
• The app says it can’t create one: open the iPhone Calendar app, tap Calendars at the bottom, then Add Calendar, then Add Calendar again, name it Golf Lessons, and tap Done. Back in Pro Golf Coach, tap Availability calendar and choose it.

If two calendars share the name, choose the one in the account you use for work (for example iCloud). The account is shown in brackets next to each name.

Step 3: Put your open times on the calendar

Add one event on Golf Lessons for each stretch you can teach. Use timed events (not All-day). Set Repeat to Every Week for regular hours.

Each stretch is one kind of lesson, either in person or virtual. You can’t be at the course and on a video call at the same time, so the app never offers both for the same stretch.

What you put on the event	What students can book
Title has In person	In-person lessons only (1 hour each by default)
Title has Virtual (or online, video, zoom)	Video lessons only (15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, the student chooses)
No word in the title, but a Location and no link	In person
No word in the title, but a URL (video link) and no Location	Virtual
No word, nothing else filled in	In person. The setup screen tells you it guessed

Place and video link on each event

• Put where you will teach in the event’s Location. Students see it before and after they book.
• Put your video link in the event’s URL field. Pasting the link into the event’s notes works too.
• Leave them blank and the app uses your defaults from Step 4.

Examples

Event title	When	Location / URL	Result
In person	Every Tuesday, 3:00 to 6:00 PM	Location: your course	Hour lessons at 3, 4 and 5 PM, at that course
Virtual	Every Thursday, 8:00 to 10:00 AM	URL: your Zoom link	Video lessons any 15 minutes from 8:00 to 10:00
In person	Saturday, 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM	Location: your range	Hour lessons at 9, 10 and 11 AM

A lesson has to fit completely inside a stretch. Other calendars take away the times you are busy (Step 5), and the bits left over are what students see.

Step 4: Your defaults and lesson settings

Go to Lesson Bookings, then Calendar & Availability, and scroll to the Lessons section. Changes save by themselves.

Setting	What it does
In-person lesson	Length of an in-person lesson: 30, 45, 1 hour, 90 or 120 minutes. Video lessons are always 15, 30, 45 or 60, chosen by the student
Default place	Used for in-person lessons booked in a stretch whose event has no Location
Default video link	Used for video lessons booked in a stretch whose event has no URL
Booking notice	How far ahead a student must book: None, 2, 4, 12, 24 or 48 hours
Students can book up to	How far in advance students can book: 14, 30, 60 or 90 days

A booked lesson keeps the place and link it was booked with, so changing a default later never changes a lesson that is already booked.

Step 5: Where booked lessons go, and what blocks your time

Add booked lessons to. Choose the calendar you check every day, such as your iCloud or Google calendar. Do not choose Golf Lessons. The line underneath says exactly where lessons are going. If you change it later, lessons already booked move to the new calendar.

Each booked lesson appears as Golf lesson: (student’s name), with the place or video link, and a one-hour reminder. It is added when the app syncs, which happens in the background or when you open the app, and removed if the lesson is cancelled.

Calendars That Block Lessons. Every other calendar on your phone (Home, Work, Family and so on) takes its busy times off your open times. Turn off any calendar that should not block lessons. Holidays and Birthdays start turned off. An event marked Free never blocks anything.

Lessons booked through this app never count as busy time, so they don’t block themselves.

Step 6: Check what students can book

1. On Calendar & Availability, tap the circular arrow at the top right. Open times updated, near the bottom, shows the time of the last refresh.
2. Open stretches shared shows how many open stretches were sent to your students. It should be more than 0.
3. Scroll to What Students Can Book. Each stretch is listed with its day, its hours, whether it is In person or Virtual, and the place or video link it carries.
4. An orange note under a stretch means its event had no “in person” or “virtual” in the title and nothing else to go on, so the app treated it as in person. Fix it by adding the word to the event title.

This list is the same thing a student sees, so check it against your calendar before you tell anyone booking is open.

Day to day: lessons and bookings

Lesson Bookings screen. Open it from the tile on your home screen. It lists every upcoming lesson with the kind, the student, the day and time, the place (or an Open video link button) and any note the student left. It refreshes by itself every minute, and the arrow at the top right refreshes it right away.

Cancelling a lesson. Swipe the lesson to the left, tap Cancel, then Cancel Lesson. The time opens up for other students and the event leaves your calendar. The student is sent a message in your private thread saying the lesson was cancelled, and gets a notification (“Mike cancelled your lesson on Tuesday, Nov 3 at 10:00 AM”).

When a student cancels. You get a notification, a message in the thread, and the lesson disappears from your list and your calendar.

Removing a student. Swipe a student to the left on your home screen, or tap Remove Student on their page. This cancels all their upcoming lessons. The student moves to Recently Removed (in the menu at the top left) for 14 days, and after that is deleted for good. There, swipe right to restore a student, or swipe left to delete one right away.

Changing your calendar.

• New or edited open-time events are picked up when you open the app, in the background, and a few seconds after you change them while the app is open.
• A lesson already booked stays booked even if you later delete or move the open-time event. Cancel it yourself if you can’t keep it.
• To take time off, add a busy event on one of your blocking calendars, or delete the open-time events for those days.

What students see. Before you finish setup they see Booking Isn’t Open Yet. If you haven’t opened the app for over a week they see a note that the times may be out of date. After they book, they get a Lesson Booked screen and the lesson sits under My Upcoming Lessons, where they can add it to their own calendar or cancel it.

Account

Tap your photo, then Account. Here you can see your name, account type and PGA number, change your password, open this guide again (Instructor Guide, under Help), open Device Settings, and delete your account. Video storage shows the combined size and number of every swing video you and your students have uploaded; delete old videos from a student’s Videos list to free space. Each student’s Videos list also shows the size of every video and a total at the bottom. You can’t delete your account while you still have students on your roster: remove every student first, then delete the ones in Recently Removed (or wait out the 14 days). This protects your students’ lessons, messages and videos.

Forgot your password? Tap Forgot password? on the sign-in screen. A 6-digit code is emailed from “Pro Golf Coach”. If it isn’t in your inbox within a couple of minutes, check Junk.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Why	What to do
The card says Calendar access is off	iPhone permission is off	Tap Open Settings, then Calendars, then Full Access
Open stretches shared is 0	No timed events on the chosen calendar in the booking window, or your other calendars cover all of them, or the wrong calendar is chosen	Check Availability calendar, make sure events are timed (not All-day), and look at the blocking calendars
A time you are busy shows as open	That calendar is turned off under Calendars That Block Lessons, or the event is marked Free	Turn the calendar on, or set the event to Busy
A time you are free is missing	A busy event covers part of it, the lesson doesn’t fit in the leftover time, or it is inside your Booking notice	Look at What Students Can Book, then your notice setting
A student sees Booking Isn’t Open Yet	You haven’t finished setup or opened the app since	Finish Steps 1 and 2, then tap the refresh arrow on Calendar & Availability
A student sees May be out of date	You haven’t opened the app for over a week	Open the app
A booked lesson isn’t on your calendar	It is added when the app syncs, or it went to a different calendar	Open the app, then check Add booked lessons to and any red text on Calendar & Availability
Lessons are going to the wrong calendar	Add booked lessons to is set to another calendar	Change it. Lessons already booked move over
The Create a Golf Lessons Calendar button is missing	You already have one	Use the Availability calendar picker
No notifications, or they only say “Notification”	A phone setting is off, or lock-screen text is hidden	Open Account, then Device Settings, and fix any orange line
Red text on Calendar & Availability	The phone or server refused something	Take a screenshot and send it to Michael

Good to know

• Please don’t swipe the app away in the app switcher. iOS then stops refreshing your open times in the background. Press Home or lock the screen instead. Notifications still arrive either way.
• A student can have at most 5 upcoming lessons booked.
• Times are shown in each person’s own time zone.
• If a stretch has no video link and you have no default, a student who books a video lesson is told you will send the link. Add a link to avoid that.
• Payment is not in the app.
• Pro Golf Coach is updated through TestFlight. Turn on Automatic Updates in the TestFlight app. A TestFlight build stops working about 90 days after it is made, so keep updating.