- 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
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.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around, perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more back swing.
02:36Using that bounce is the thing, if 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.
03:07We firstly played three holes and what were your first impressions of the way that Josh
03:13hits 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 he
03:27already 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.
03:37So for him I think it was a little bit more about selection of shots maybe, maybe a bit
03:41more strategy orientated in how he could improve whilst he just naturally develops in all the
03:46other 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.
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.
04:31So 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 shot should we be playing here, so what club.
04:50So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us is it tight to it,
04:55in which case it might be the 60 degree or for Josh it would be a 58, is it a
04:5952.
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,
05:28whereas we moved it to can you hit, can you deliver this skill, which is hitting those landing points,
05:34got it, really good. So if he can do that time and time again, he's going to have an electric
05:38short game and I'd hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game
05:42by becoming just really, really effective at the simple stuff around the greens.
05:46And what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background watching all of this as it took place,
05:49is that that element of like having a challenge as you practice, which is more than just getting up
05:54and down as you say, but actually can you land it on this towel or hit it into this circle
05:57on the green,
05:58it's something that for a junior golfer is really going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what
06:04you're trying to do. Practice sucks, you know, it's that, I mean, especially for kids, it's the boring
06:08bit, you 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. So the best thing we
06:18can
06:18do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make it more performance orientated,
06:23which is what most practice isn't. The most guilty thing I see from amateur golfers of the way they
06:29go about what they do is the way they practice, really poor. And I've been a culprit over the years
06:33as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your time unless you're purely grooving
06:39a movement, but even still it should be conscious. You should be engaged with it because in the end you
06:44have to engage when you get out here on the golf course. If I take any amateur anywhere in the
06:48world,
06:48and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that tee shot, those feelings, how those
06:54arms
06:55feel, how they feel inside will feel completely different to if I said, there's a range, there's
07:00no one on it, here's a couple of hundred balls, have a good day. Because bored, almost bored, casual, like,
07:05and sometimes it might not even be good because they're just not focused at all. But the fact is you
07:09do
07:09that to prepare for this. If we can bring the pressure to the practice, and in a fun way as
07:15well,
07:15and create that challenge, then one, it might also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge,
07:20rather than, oh my goodness, I'm terrified at the club championships next week, for adults,
07:24less so for kids. You know, to being like, this is fun, it's a challenge. And also you're used to
07:29having to do it under a bit of pressure. And that means that then when you step on that first
07:33tee,
07:34there is a comfort in thinking, this isn't as different. Sure, it's different. You know, just like if I
07:39put someone in a position like I have to win on tour, or to play in the Masters, or teared
07:43up on the first
07:43tee at the Open 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
07:52our
07:52practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier. So there you have it, some really simple
07:56and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy when you're on the golf course,
08:00and also how to practice as well. Some simple advice there for Josh, and hopefully for you too,
08:04to help you improve. So there you have it, some really simple and effective advice from Nick,
08:09for Josh on how to improve by building a better strategy, and then how to work, particularly
08:13on his short game. Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before. And
08:19having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh as he
08:24continues to improve his golf game. And hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really
08:28help 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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