- 8 hours ago
In the first episode of Game Improved: 10 year-old Josh Jackson gets a golf lesson from Nick Dougherty
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club and the first in a
00:04special three-part series in which we've got three normal amateur golfers and we're going to give
00:10them to Nick Doherty for the day to see whether Nick can help them play better golf. So we're
00:15here at Wentworth and we're going to head out onto the west course, they're going to play
00:18three holes with Nick and then they're going to get some individual one-on-one lesson time
00:22to see what advice Nick can offer them to help them shoot lower scores. So our first golfer
00:28is a 10-year-old junior who plays off a handicap of nine, very impressive golfer. The question
00:33is how will Nick help him improve? Let's go and find out.
00:47Right Josh, so first question, what's your handicap? I'm off nine. And how long have you been playing
00:54for? Because you're only, what, 10 years old? Yep, so I've been playing since I was two. And I take it
01:00your handicap has come down pretty quickly this year. So we're filming this in end of September.
01:04What would it have been at the start of the year, do you think? So start of the year, it was about 14.
01:11Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of golf. Yeah, and I've seen you hit the
01:17ball quite a bit and I can confirm you hit it very nicely. But how's your feeling about where your game is at?
01:22What's your strengths? What do you think your weaknesses are? I think, yeah, golf is good at
01:26the moment. I'd say my strength is probably my driving. I could probably still improve my wedges,
01:32chipping and putting. So you're going to have access to somebody who used to be on the European
01:36tour. He's one of the best pundits in the game. What do you think you'd like to learn from Nick?
01:40What are the questions that you want to answer? Probably a few questions about being on tour.
01:45Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that. And how hard is it to get there?
01:51Well, it's a very exciting proposition in front of us. Right, let's head out to the golf course
01:56for me, Nick.
01:58We'd have more teeth and you go, yeah, you got it all the time, it's a very interesting
02:03course. I'm quite impressed. I've asked views of the golf course. We'd have more teeth and
02:21We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around, perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more back swing, using that bounce is the thing, you throw more speed at it but you keep using
02:39the bounce, get that foot open, get that knee over that foot, nice, that's it, plenty of
02:47power into it, lovely, what a shot to go down the slope, so the only way, so you almost
02:53want to feel like you're soft in your knees as you go down the slope, you're back where
02:57the rock is, the rock, rock, so feel that in there, look at the nice thing, step away not
03:01too close to the ball.
03:03Right Nick, so let's start with Josh, we firstly played three holes and what were your first
03:12impressions of the way that Josh hits the ball?
03:14He drives it like I wish I did when I was playing on tour, phenomenal, really great
03:19golf swing, good attitude as well, I think for Josh, the most important stuff was getting
03:25the most out of the skills that he already has, playing off nine, you know, is still immense
03:30at this age and he's progressing nicely, he's going to get naturally bigger and stronger,
03:35so the rest of it should take care of itself, so for him I think it was a little bit more
03:39about selection of shots maybe and maybe a bit more strategy orientated in how he could
03:44improve whilst he just naturally develops in all the other areas.
03:47So what would be the general advice then in terms of strategy, is there anything in there
03:50that you can offer people that they might be able to take into their own game as well?
03:54I think this is helpful for juniors in particular because we all remember being juniors, those
03:58of us that have played from a young enough age.
04:00When you get to a level where you start to spin the golf ball, it becomes something that's
04:05very addictive and to be fair, it's a testament to quality of strike and Josh has that, but
04:13sometimes it will lead him to play a more challenging shot than the one he needs to.
04:17The name of the game is how many shots did it take, not how pretty did they look?
04:21So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try and instill was pick something
04:26that we could reproduce more regularly with in terms of shot selection around the greens.
04:32So for that we use the idea of landing it a set point on the green, barring something
04:36weird going on with the green like the elephant's graveyard at St Andrews, something like that
04:40which might influence your shot, normal green in front of you, trying to land it roughly
04:44a couple of yards on every time and then using that landing point then to tell us what
04:48sort of shot should we be playing here, so what club, so wherever that flag is in relation
04:52to that landing point will tell us is it tight to it, in which case it might be the
04:5660 degree or for Josh it would be a 58, is it a 52?
05:00If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe across the 11th one of the holes
05:04we played today, maybe we get down to 9, 8, 7, you know, and have a nice simple action
05:10which he does already have, but he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him.
05:15But also you could see when I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping into
05:18things to work on through the winter and stuff, when we made him dial in on competing to land
05:24it in the right place, so competing normally is did you get it up and down, you know, whereas
05:29we moved it to can you hit, can you deliver this skill, which is hit those landing points.
05:33Got it.
05:34Really good.
05:35So if he can do that time and time again, he's going to have an electric short game and
05:39I'd hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just
05:43really, really effective at the simple stuff around the greens.
05:46Yeah, and what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background watching all of this
05:49as it took place, is that that element of like having a challenge as you practice, which
05:53is more than just getting up and down as you say, but actually can you land it on this tower
05:56or hit it into this circle on the green, it's something that for a junior golfer is really
06:01going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do.
06:05Practice sucks, you know, it's that, I mean, especially for kids, it's the boring bit, you know, they
06:09want to be out there trying to beat their pals, playing in competitions, but we've got to work at it,
06:14you know, that's how we groom these skills. So the best thing we can do and actually to get the most
06:19out of that practice is to make it more performance orientated, which is what most practice isn't.
06:25The most guilty thing I see from amateur golfers of the way they go about what they do is the way
06:30they practice, really poor. And I've been a culprit over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit.
06:35You're wasting your time unless you're purely grooving a movement. But even still, it should be conscious,
06:42you should be engaged with it because in the end, you have to engage when you get out here on the
06:45golf course. If I take any amateur anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA
06:51to hit that tee shot, those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel completely
06:58different to if I said, there's a range, there's no one on it, here's a couple of hundred balls,
07:01have a good day. Because bored, almost bored, casual. And sometimes it might not even be good
07:06because they're just not focused at all. But the fact is you do that to prepare for this.
07:12If we can bring the pressure to the practice, and in a fun way as well, and create that challenge,
07:17then one, it might also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than, oh my goodness,
07:21I'm terrified at the club championships next week. For adults, less so for kids. To being like,
07:26this is fun, it's a challenge. And also you're used to having to do it under a bit of pressure.
07:31And that means that then when you step on that first tee, there is a comfort in thinking,
07:36this isn't as different. Sure, it's different. You know, just like if I put someone in a position
07:40like I have to win on tour or to play in the Masters or teared up on the first tee at the
07:44Open in your home city, like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them.
07:48But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position. So if we're doing that in our
07:52practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier.
07:54So there you have it. Some really simple and effective ways to think about game plan and
07:59strategy when you're on the golf course and also how to practice as well. Some simple advice there
08:03for Josh and hopefully for you too, to help you improve. So there you have it. Some really simple
08:07and effective advice from Nick for Josh on how to improve by building a better strategy and then how
08:12to work particularly on his short game. Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it
08:18before and having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh
08:24as he continues to improve his golf game and hopefully there's some stuff in there that should
08:28really help you as well. That's it for now from Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.
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