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
00:59it
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
01:09was about 14.
01:11Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of golf. Yeah,
01:16and I've seen you hit the ball quite a bit and I can confirm you hit it very nicely. But
01:20what's,
01:21how's your feeling about where your game is at? What's your strengths? What do you think your
01:24weaknesses are? I think, yeah, golf is good at the moment. I'd say my strength is probably my driving.
01:29I could probably still improve my wedges, chipping and putting. So you're going to have access to
01:34somebody who used to be on the European tour. He's one of the best pundits in the game. What do
01:38you
01:38think you'd like to learn from Nick? What are the questions that you want to answer? Probably a few
01:43questions about being on tour. Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that and how hard is it to
01:51get there? Well, it's a very exciting proposition in front of us. Right, let's head out to the golf course.
01:57Okay.
01:57Okay.
01:57Bye.
02:09Bye.
02:11Bye.
02:18Bye.
02:20Bye.
02:23Bye.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around, perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more backswing.
02:36Using that bounce is the thing, you throw more speed at it but you keep using the bounce,
02:40get that foot open, get that knee over that foot, nice, that's it, plenty of power into
02:47it.
02:49Lovely, what a shot to go down the slope, so the only way, so you almost want to feel
02:54like you're soft in your knees as you go down the slope, you're back where the rock is the
02:58rock, rock.
02:59So feel that in there, look at the nice thing, step away not too close to the ball.
03:05Right 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?
03:13He drives it like I wish I did when I was playing on tour, phenomenal.
03:18Really great golf swing, good attitude as well.
03:21I think for Josh, the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that
03:26he already has.
03:27Playing off nine is still immense at this age and he's progressing nicely, he's going to
03:32get 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
03:38more
03:39about selection of shots maybe, maybe a bit more strategy orientated in how he could improve
03:44whilst 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?
03:53I 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.
04:13But sometimes 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 it 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 sort
04:48of shots 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 60
04:56degree
04:57or 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.
05:12But he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him, but also you could see when
05:16I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping into things to work on through
05:19the winter and stuff, when we made him dial in on competing to land it in the right place,
05:25so competing normally is did you get it up and down, you know, whereas we moved it to can
05:30you hit, can you deliver this skill, which is hitting those landing points, really good.
05:35So if he can do that time and time again, he's going to have an electric short game and I'd
05:39hazard a guess
05:39that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just really, really effective
05:44at the simple stuff around the greens.
05:46Yeah, and what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background watching all
05:48of this as it took place, is that that element of like having a challenge as you practice,
05:53which is more than just getting it up and down as you say, but actually can you land it on
05:56this towel or hit it into this circle on the green, it's something that for a junior golfer
06:00is really going 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.
06:09You know, they want to be out there trying to beat their pals, playing in competitions,
06:13but we've got to work at it, you know, that's how we groom these skills.
06:17So the best thing we can do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make
06:21it 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
06:30way they practice, really poor.
06:31And 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.
06:40But 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
06:45the golf course.
06:46If 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 different
06:58to if I said, there's a range, there's no one on it, here's a couple hundred balls, have a good
07:01day.
07:03Because bored, almost bored, casual.
07:05And sometimes it might not even be good because they're just not focused at all.
07:08But 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,
07:21oh my goodness, I'm terrified at the club championships next week for adults, less so for kids.
07:25You know, to being like, this is fun, it's a challenge.
07:28And 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,
07:35this isn't as different.
07:37Sure, it's different.
07:38You know, just like if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour
07:41or to play in the Masters or teared up on the first tee at the Open in your home city.
07:45Like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them.
07:48But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position.
07:51So if we're doing that in our practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier.
07:54So there you have it.
07:55Some really simple and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy
07:59when you're on the golf course and also how to practice as well.
08:02Some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for you too to help you improve.
08:05So there you have it.
08:06Some really simple and effective advice from Nick for Josh on how to improve
08:10by building a better strategy and then how to work particularly on his short game.
08:15Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before
08:18and having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh
08:23as he continues to improve his golf game
08:26and hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really help you as well.
08:30That's it for now from Wentworth.
08:31Thanks very much for watching.
08:32We'll see you next time.
08:35We'll see you next time.
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