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.
01:57be next.
01:57chapter five.
02:09Bye-bye.
02:10Bye-bye.
02:20Bye.
02:21Bye.
02:22Bye.
02:23Bye.
02:24Bye-bye.
02:25Bye-bye.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around.
02:31Perfect, two.
02:34It's a little bit more backswing. 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. That's it, plenty of power into it.
02:49Lovely, what a shot to go down the slope. So the only way, so you almost want to feel like
02:54you're
02:54soft in your knees as you go down the slope. You're back where the rock is the rock 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? He drives it like I wish I did when I was
03:15playing
03:16on tour. Phenomenal, really great golf swing, good attitude as well. I think for Josh the most
03:23important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that he already has. Playing off nine
03:28you know is still immense at this age and he's progressing nicely. He's going to get naturally
03:33bigger and stronger so the rest of it should take care of itself. So for him I think it was
03:37a little
03:38bit more about 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 that you can
03:51offer people that they might be able to take into their own games?
03:53Especially this is, I think this is helpful for juniors in particular because we all remember
03:57being juniors, those of us that have played from a young enough age. When you get to a level where
04:01you start to spin the golf ball, it becomes something that's very addictive in terms, and it's
04:07a field goal and it's a, to be fair, it's a testament to quality of strike and Josh has that.
04:12But sometimes
04:13it will lead him to play a more challenging shot than the one he needs to. The name of the
04:18game is how many shots
04:19did it take, not how pretty did they look? So I think one of the things with Josh that I
04:23wanted
04:23to try and instill was pick something that we could reproduce more regularly with it in terms
04:30of shot selection around the greens. So for that we use the idea of landing it a set point on
04:35the green,
04:35barring something weird going on with a green like the elephant's graveyard at St Andrews,
04:39something like that which might influence your shot, normal green in front of you. Trying to land
04:43it roughly a couple 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 to that
04:53landing point will tell us is it tight to it, in which case it might be the 60 degree or
04:57for Josh
04:57it'd be a 58. Is it a 52? If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe
05:03across the 11th,
05:03one of the holes we played today, maybe we get down to nine, eight, seven, you know, and have a
05:09nice
05:09simple action, which he does already have, but he was picking a shot that was much more basic for
05:14him. But also you could see when I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping into
05:18things
05:18to work on through the winter and stuff, when we made him dial in on competing to land it in
05:24the
05:24right place, so 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, got it, really good.
05:35So if he can do that time and time again he's going to have an electric short game,
05:38I'd hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just really,
05:44really effective at the simple stuff around the green. Yeah, and what's quite interesting,
05:47I was standing in the background watching all of this as it took place, is that that element of
05:50like having a challenge as you practice, which is more than just getting up and down as you say,
05:55but actually can you land it on this towel or hit it into this circle on 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,
06:08it's the boring bit, you know, they want to be out there trying to beat their pals, playing in
06:12competitions, but we got to work at it, you know, that's how we groom these skills. So the best
06:18thing we can do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make it more performance
06:22orientated, which is what most practice isn't. The most guilty thing I see from amateur golfers of
06:28the way they go about what they do is the way they practice, really poor. And I've been a culprit
06:33over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your time,
06:37unless you're purely grooving a movement. But even still, it should be conscious, you should be engaged
06:43with it. Because in the end, you have to engage when you get out here on the golf course. If
06:46I take
06:46any amateur anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that
06:52tee shot,
06:53those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel completely different to if I said,
06:59there's a range, there's no one on it, here's a couple hundred balls, have a good day. Because bored,
07:03almost bored, casual, like, and sometimes it might not even be good because they're just not focused
07:08at all. But the fact is, you do that to prepare for this. If we can bring the pressure to
07:13the
07:13practice and in a fun way as well and create that challenge, then one, it might also shift this to
07:19feeling more like a fun challenge rather than, oh my goodness, I'm terrified, the club championships
07:23next week for adults, less so for kids, you know, to being like, this is fun, it's a challenge. And
07:28also,
07:28you're used to having to do it under a bit of pressure. And that means that then when you step
07:33on that first tee, there is a comfort in thinking, this isn't as different. Sure, it's different.
07:38You know, just like if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour or to
07:42play in the Masters
07:42or teared up on the first tee at the Open in your home city, like that would be terrifying and
07:47feel
07:47uncomfortable to them. But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position. So if we're
07:51doing that in our practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier. So there you have it,
07:55some really simple and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy when you're on the
08:00golf course, and also how to practice as well. Some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for
08:04you too, to 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 on his
08:14short game. Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before. And having that kind of
08:20tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh as he continues to improve his
08:26golf game. And hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really help you as well.
08:29That's it for now from Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.
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