Telling a different story in The Golf Delusion

There's a new golf instruction book out. Sounds boring? Not a bit of it because this is a golf book with a difference. It makes the usual promises to improve your game, but then it changes pace and has a different story to tell.

In fact, lots of stories, featuring some of the many showbiz stars and sports heroes of today and yesterday who have gone to the Knightsbridge Golf School and followed its unique style of teaching started nearly 60 years ago.

High on the list are film stars and their films, including Hugh Grant, Sir Sean Connery, horror king Christopher Lee, and also Terry Savalas, who once threw his jacket to the floor while shopping in Harrods and practised his new-look swing in front of a convenient mirror.

But one of the most romantic stories features a 2004 Disney classic aptly called The Greatest Game Ever Played, which told how British golfing legends, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, went out to America to try to win the US Open. The producers sent two of its stars, Stephen Dillane and Stephen Marcus, to the school for lessons.

No problem there because the school's teaching methods were originally based on the swings of Vardon and Ray. In true Disney fashion, the American teenage hero beat our heroes.

The Knightsbridge School is based in Lowndes Square in the heart of London's Belgravia, just a Tiger drive away from Harrods and a chip away from Harvey Nichols. It was founded by the legendary teacher Leslie King, and is now run by two of his protégés, Steve Gould and David Wilkinson.

Sean Connery went to the school for lessons in preparation for 007's classic match with the villain in Goldfinger. It was filmed at the Stoke Park course in Buckinghamshire, which has been the School's sister club for the past 15 years.