Want to learn a skill fast? Download a video lesson

Golf is a difficult game to learn. Whether a beginner or advanced player, most of us have booked lessons from pros at some point, but often we've been left with the same question: Was the investment value for money, or even necessary?

When I took up the game more than a decade ago I first took lessons from a retired golfer in addition to reading books and watching DVDs on the basics.

I admit I have never been a natural, calm and collected athlete. But the longer I play golf, the more I believe it can be self-taught, especially with the rise of online pedagogy.

For the past couple of years, I have worked on improving my overall skills.

Instead of returning to a coach, however, I have tried self-learning by watching golf videos on the Internet. My two favorite sites offer more than 63,000 clips combined.

The video lessons fans can view and download normally last less than 10 minutes.

Some have been posted by top coaches or golf courses to promote their services. But together they cover a wide breadth of skills, from swinging to pitching to putting.

You can watch hundreds of backswings in minute detail, including those focused on keeping your left arm straight－a key skill that has bugged me from the very beginning.

Internet lessons are probably the best thing that has happened to me as a golf learner, as they have been for those wanting to pick up a new language, or a musical instrument or master other skills which are complicated and have previously only been taught face-to-face.

Self-learning has been made easy by the Internet, and has revolutionized education with free information and many options.

Even the lack of interaction with a golf instructor or fellow students, in my case, long regarded as a main disadvantage of Internet learning, appears to be less a problem because after I watch a new technique, I am always eager to try it out on the course and compare notes with other golfers or caddies.

I had thought about seeking more help from professional coaches, who count on returning golfers intending to take their game up a notch as a main source of income.

Good golf coaching, however, is still prohibitively expensive, in Beijing starting at 1,000 yuan per hour for an experienced one. Packages of 10 or 20 lessons are slightly cheaper per hour but will cover only the basics.

Their customer numbers have dwindled, I am told, due to the alternative learning methods becoming available, but also the ongoing government crackdown on corruption involving golf.

But many with advanced qualifications remain confident there will always be enough rich, image-conscious golfers anxious to improve their swing.

To compete against the digital offerings, though, there has also been a growing number of inexperienced junior coaches cropping up at driving ranges and golf courses, who vie to give lessons to beginners or children.

But many golfers question their ability, given how notoriously easy it is in China to earn a coaching qualification.

While the China Golf Association strictly requires someone to complete an 18-hole, par-72 course in 88 strokes or less, before he or she can become an intermediate-level coach, anyone can become a "junior coach" if they can successfully hit three out of five golf balls into a 25-yard wide target area, 110-140 yards away, according to a recent report in the Chinese-language Golf Magazine.

I have closely watched golf coaches giving lessons to students. Invariably there was an audience of other coaches nearby cheering the learner on.

I'm not saying lessons like that are a waste of money: but I do wonder if anyone would bother buying them, if they knew about the massive amount of resources available online, without the need for a live instructor.