I'm Steve Kennedy. I coach pickleball at Bamford Park in Davie, and I sell both private lessons and small-group clinics. That means I have a financial interest in this question, so let me be as straight as possible: I make more per hour from privates, and I'm still going to tell you that plenty of players should be in clinics instead. What you should buy depends on what's actually holding your game back, and after coaching for four decades across tennis and pickleball, I can tell you the answer is usually knowable within one session.
Here's how the two formats really compare.
What a private lesson does that nothing else can
A private lesson is diagnosis and repair. For a full hour, an experienced coach watches only you: your grip, your contact point, your footwork, the way your mechanics change under fatigue. In sixty minutes I can typically find the root cause of a problem a player has been fighting for a year, because I'm not splitting attention four ways.
Privates are the right tool when:
- You have a specific mechanical flaw. A serve that breaks down, a backhand you avoid, dinks that pop up. Fixing mechanics requires many corrected repetitions in a row, and only a private gives you that density of feedback.
- You're a true beginner. The first three hours of pickleball set habits you'll carry for years. Learning the grip and the basic strokes correctly from the start is far cheaper than unlearning them later.
- You've plateaued and don't know why. If you can't name what's wrong, you need diagnosis before you need reps.
- You're preparing for something. A tournament, a league season, a jump in rating. Privates let the coach build a plan around your specific opponents and weaknesses.
The honest limitation of privates: they are a controlled environment. I can feed you a thousand perfect balls, and you'll hit beautiful drops off every one of them. Real opponents don't feed perfect balls. A player who only takes privates often looks great in lessons and ordinary in games, because the skill hasn't been tested against live, messy, competitive play.
There's also the obvious cost math. At $100 an hour, weekly privates are a real commitment, and not every improvement requires that level of attention.
What a clinic does that a private can't
A small-group clinic, and I mean genuinely small, two to four players in mine, gives you something a private never can: live play against people who are trying to beat you, with a coach watching and correcting in real time.
Clinics are the right tool when:
- Your mechanics are decent but your game sense lags. Shot selection, positioning, when to speed up, when to reset. These are decisions, and decisions can only be trained in live points.
- You need competitive reps. Drilling a third shot drop against a feed is step one. Hitting it while two opponents crash the kitchen is the skill you actually need on Saturday.
- You learn well by watching. In a good clinic you learn from every correction I give the other three players, which quadruples the teaching without quadrupling your cost.
- Budget is a factor. At $40 to $60 per person, a weekly clinic is sustainable for years in a way weekly privates often aren't.
The limitation runs the other way. In a group, my attention is divided. If your backhand has a structural flaw, I'll see it in a clinic, but I can't stop the session for twenty minutes to rebuild it. Clinics refine and pressure-test what you have. They're an inefficient place to construct something new.
One warning: a clinic is only worth it if it's actually a clinic. A dozen players on two courts rotating through lines while a coach blows a whistle is exercise with a registration fee. Ask how many players share the coach before you sign up anywhere. Past four or five, the format stops being instruction.
How the best-improving players mix both
The players I've watched climb fastest, from 3.0 to 3.5, from 3.5 to 4.0, follow some version of the same pattern, and it uses both formats for what each does best.
They take a private when something is broken or new. One or two sessions to diagnose the flaw and install the fix, with a drill plan to take home. Then they move the new skill into a weekly clinic, where it gets pressure-tested against live opponents while I watch to make sure it holds up. When the skill survives competition, the private has done its job and the money shifts back to clinics and drilling until the next problem surfaces.
For most improving players, that comes out to a rhythm like this: a weekly or biweekly clinic as the backbone, a private every four to six weeks as a checkpoint, and self-directed drilling in between. That schedule costs a fraction of weekly privates and, in my experience, produces faster improvement, because every dollar is doing the specific job it's suited for.
Players on a tighter budget can stretch it further: one private per season for diagnosis, clinics for everything else. Players chasing tournament results compress it: more frequent privates in the weeks before an event, clinics for match sharpness.
The one thing neither format fixes
Neither a private nor a clinic will improve you if the hours in between are all casual games. Lessons tell you what to practice. Clinics test it under pressure. The improvement itself happens in the drilling you do between sessions. My students who follow their take-home drill plans improve two or three times faster than students who take the identical lessons and skip the homework. The format question matters less than that.
If you want help figuring out which you need right now, text me and tell me about your game. I'll give you an honest answer, including "start with the clinic" when that's the truth.
Text Steve at (954) 461-9946. Private lessons, semi-privates, and small-group clinics of two to four players at Bamford Park in Davie.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are private pickleball lessons worth it?
Yes, for the right job. Privates excel at diagnosing mechanical flaws, teaching beginners correct fundamentals, and breaking plateaus, because the coach's full attention allows dense, corrected repetition. They're less efficient for developing game sense, which requires live play.
What is the difference between a pickleball lesson and a clinic?
A private lesson is one-on-one instruction focused on your specific mechanics. A clinic is a small group session built around live drilling and point play with coaching in real time. Privates build and repair skills; clinics pressure-test them against real opponents.
How many players should a good pickleball clinic have?
Ideally two to four players per coach. Beyond four or five, individual correction mostly disappears and the session becomes supervised open play. Ask about the player-to-coach ratio before booking any clinic.
Should a beginner start with lessons or clinics?
Beginners benefit most from one or two private lessons first to learn grip, strokes, and positioning correctly, then group sessions for live play. Habits formed in the first few hours of pickleball are hard to undo later.
Where can I take pickleball lessons or clinics in Davie, FL?
Steve Kennedy, USA Pickleball Nationals Senior Pro Champion and former ATP tour player, teaches privates ($100/hr) and small-group clinics at Bamford Park in Davie. Text (954) 461-9946 to book.