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.
01:57Okay.
02:19Bye-bye.
02:27We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around, perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more backswing, 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.
03:05Right 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, really great
03:19golf 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, playing off nine, you know, is still immense at this age and he's progressing
03:32nicely, he's going to get naturally bigger and stronger, so the rest of it should take
03:36care of itself.
03:36So 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
04:31greens.
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 shot should we be playing here, so what club.
04:51So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us is it tight to it, in
04:55which
04:55case it might be the 60 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 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 by becoming
05:43just 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 element of like having a challenge as you practice, which is more than just getting
05:54it up and down as you say, but actually can you land it on this towel or hit it into
05:57this circle
05:57on the green. It's something that for a junior golfer is really going to hopefully engage a little bit
06:04more in what you'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've got to work at it, you know, that's how we groom these skills. So the best thing
06:18we can
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 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 that to prepare for this. If we can bring the pressure to the practice, and in a fun way
07:15as well,
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
07:39if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour or to play in the Masters
07:42or teared up on
07:43the first tee at the Open in your home city, like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to
07:48them. But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position. So if we're doing that
07:51in our practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier. So there you have it, some really
07:55simple and 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 for
08:09Josh 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
08:19kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh as he continues to
08:25improve his golf game. And hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really help you as
08:29well. That's it for now from Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.
08:36Bye-bye.
