At $75 per hour, $40 per 30 minutes, any way one looks at it, golf lessons from a professional can be expensive.

Unless they are free.

PGA Free Lesson Month is in its eighth consecutive year. More than 5,500 golf facilities nationwide - including over 200 PGA professionals in Pennsylvania - are offering free 10-minutes lessons in May to anyone who wants one.

"The idea is to show people what can be accomplished through lessons," said Jesse Horner, a Butler resident and club pro at Olde Stonewall Golf Club in Ellwood City. "It also gets people over the fear of taking lessons for the first time.

"Nobody wants to look bad in front of a professional. A lot of golfers never try lessons for that reason. But we all look bad playing this game.

"Tiger Woods putted a ball off the green at The Masters and he's the best player in the world," Horner added.

Horner is among the pros participating in this program, which is the result of a partnership between the PGA of America, Golf Digest, The Golf Channel and Golf For Women.

Golfers can find participating PGA pros by logging on to www.playgolfamerica.com and searching by zip code.

Find a facility near you, make a call and schedule an appointment - simple as that.

"People are intimidated by lessons and by price," Horner admitted. "But I start with the basics and try to rid the golfer of common bad habits.

"We want people to be interested in playing golf - and people are interested in it a lot more if they have the fundamentals down as opposed to struggling out there and getting beat all the time."

Horner said only six golfers have taken advantage of this program through him the past couple of years.

Patty Price, pro at Pittsburgh North Golf Club in Bakerstown, has had 20 to 25 golfers use the program. John Steidle, a pro at Golf-In in Wexford, said he and fellow pro Robert Chuderewicz get about 20 each year.

Price and Steidle have both been teaching golf for more than 20 years.

"It's a startling experience to a golfer who's taking lessons for the first time," Price said. "Even in 10 minutes, you can improve their game."

"Without basic fundamentals, any attempt to improve one's own game will be marginal at best," Steidle said. "It's not just the pro's knowledge of the game. It's the ability to communicate the skills of it to someone else through years of teaching it."

Steidle said he has given more than 10,000 lessons over the past 25 years.

Price said one of the most common flaws she finds in golfers is in failing to let the club face do the work.

"A lot of golfers consciously try to lift the ball in the air instead of letting the technology of the club in their hands take care of that for them," she said. "It's a matter of trusting the club.

"Bad posture is a common thing, too. A lot of new golfers tend to use a baseball swing and cut across the ball, rather than swing through the ball."

Horner said golfers fall in love with the long game far too quickly - and wrongly.

"It's the most common misnomer out there," he said. "We all like the long ball. People go to a driving range and what club comes out of the bag first? … The driver.

"Chipping and putting are so much more critical to improving one's score. During an average 18-hole round, you're going to hit your driver 12 times and use your putter 38 times. It's obvious which is more important."

Other elements of golf that can be learned with 10 minutes of professional instruction include:

How to hone the correct path of the three arcs of a backswing using a driver.

Controlling the face of your wedge as it goes through the sand.

How to develop good touch and feel for the proper speed of a putt.

How to read greens.

How to aim more accurately when putting.

"Once a golfer overcomes that initial fear of working with a professional, they can see there's light at the end of the tunnel in terms of improving his game," Steidle said.