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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
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.
01:57Me, Nick.
02:19I'll see you next time.
02:21Bye.
02:23Bye.
02:23Bye.
02:25Bye.
02:26Bye.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around. Perfect. Two.
02:34It's a little bit more back swing. Using that bounce is the thing. You throw more speed at it,
02:38but you keep using the bounce. Get that foot open. Get that knee over that foot.
02:44Nice.
02:46That's it. Plenty of power into it.
02:49Lovely. What a shot. To go down the slope. So the only way,
02:53so you almost want to feel like you're soft in your knees as you go down the slope, yeah?
02:57You're back where the rock is the rock, rock. So feel that in there.
03:00Look 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.
03:11And what were your first impressions 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. I think for Josh,
03:22the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that he
03:26already has. Playing off nine, you know, is still immense at this age and he's
03:31progressing nicely. He's going to get naturally bigger and stronger.
03:35So the rest of it should take care of itself. So for him,
03:37I think it was a little bit more about selection of shots, maybe.
03:41Maybe 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?
03:50Is there anything in there that you can offer people that they might be able to take into their own
03:53game?
03:53Especially this, I think this is helpful for juniors in particular,
03:56because we all remember being juniors, those of us that have played from a young enough age.
04:00When you get to a level where you start to spin the golf ball,
04:04it becomes something that's very addictive in terms of, and it's a field goal. And it's a,
04:08to be fair, it's a testament to quality of strike. And Josh has that. But sometimes it will lead him
04:14to
04:14play a more challenging shot than the one he needs to. The name of the game is how many shots
04:19did it take,
04:19not how pretty did they look? So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try
04:24and instill was,
04:26pick something that 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 weird going
04:37on with the green,
04:37like the elephant's graveyard at St Andrews, some of that, which might influence your shot.
04:41Normal green in front of you, trying to land it roughly a couple of yards on every time,
04:45and then using that landing point then to tell us what sort of shot should we be playing here,
04:50so what club. So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us,
04:54is it tight to it? In which case it might be the 60 degree or for Josh, it'd be a
04:5858.
04:59Is it a 52? If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe across the 11th, one
05:04of the holes
05:04we played today, maybe we get down to nine, eight, seven, 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. But also,
05:15you could see when I set him up, and again, this is something sort of tapping into things to work
05:19on through the winter and stuff, when we made him dial in on competing to land it in the right
05:24place,
05:25so competing normally is, did you get it up and down, you know, whereas we moved it to,
05:30can you 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
05:39guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just really, really effective at the
05:45simple stuff around the green. And what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background
05:48watching all of this as it took place, is that that element of like having a challenge as you
05:52practice, which is more than just getting 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 is really
06:01going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do. Practice sucks, you know,
06:06it's that, I mean, for, especially for kids, it's the boring bit, you know, they want to be out there
06:10trying to beat their pals, playing in competitions, but we've got to work at it, you know, that's how
06:15we groom these skills. So the best thing we can do, and actually to get the most out of that
06:20practice
06:20is to make it more performance orientated, which is what most practice isn't. The most guilty thing
06:26I see from amateur golfers of the way they go about what they do is the way they practice, really
06:31poor.
06:31And I've been a culprit over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your
06:36time, unless you're purely grooving a movement. But even still, it should be conscious, you should
06:42be engaged with it, because in the end, you have to engage when you get out here on the golf
06:46course.
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
06:58different to if I said, there's a range, there's no one on it, here's a couple hundred balls, have a
07:01good
07:01day. Because bored, almost bored, casual. And sometimes it might not even be good because
07:07they're just not focused at all. But the fact is, you do that to prepare for this. If we can
07:12bring
07:12the pressure to the practice, and in a fun way as well, and create that challenge, then one, it might
07:18also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than, oh my goodness, I'm terrified, the club
07:22championships next week for adults, less so for kids. 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. And that means that then when
07:32you step on that first tee, there is a comfort in thinking, this isn't as different. Sure, it's
07:38different. You know, just like if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour, or
07:41to play
07:42in the Masters, or teared up on the first tee at the Open in your home city, like that would
07:46be
07:46terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them. But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that
07:50position. So if we're doing that in our practice, 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
08:23as he continues to improve his golf game. And hopefully there's some stuff in there that
08:28should really help you as well. That's it for now from Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching.
08:32We'll see you next time.
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