In the first episode of Game Improved: 10 year-old Josh Jackson gets a golf lesson from Nick Dougherty
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00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club
00:03 and the first in a special three-part series in which we've got three normal amateur golfers
00:09 and we're going to give them to Nick Doherty for the day to see whether Nick can help them play
00:14 better golf. So we're here at Wentworth and we're going to head out onto the west course,
00:17 they're going to play three holes with Nick and then they're going to get some individual
00:21 one-on-one lesson time to see what advice Nick can offer them to help them shoot lower scores.
00:27 So our first golfer is a 10-year-old junior who plays with a handicap of nine,
00:31 very impressive golfer, the question is how will Nick help him improve? Let's go and find out.
00:36 Right Josh, so first question, what's your handicap? I'm off nine. And how long have
00:54 you been playing for? Because you're only what, 10 years old? Yeah, so I've been playing since I
00:58 was two. And I take it your handicap has come down pretty quickly this year, so we're filming this in
01:03 end of September, what would it have been at the start of the year do you think? So start of the
01:08 year it was about 14. Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of golf.
01:16 Yeah and I've seen you hit the ball quite a bit and I can confirm you hit it very nicely,
01:20 but what's, how's your feeling about where your game is at? What's your strengths, what do you
01:23 think your weaknesses are? I think yeah golf is good at the moment, I'd say my strengths probably
01:28 my driving, I could probably still improve my wedges, chipping and putting. So you're gonna
01:34 have access to somebody who used to be on the European tour, he's one of the sort of best
01:37 pundits in the game, what do you think you'd like to learn from Nick? What are the questions that
01:41 you want to answer? Probably a few questions about being on tour. Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite
01:46 interested about that and how hard is it to get there? Well it's a very exciting proposition
01:54 in front of us. Right let's head out to the golf course for me, Nick.
01:58 [Music]
02:27 We'd have more tees and you're gonna make a circle around. Perfect, two.
02:32 A little bit more back swing. Using that bounce as the thing, you throw more speed at it
02:38 but you keep using the bounce, get that foot open, get that knee over that foot.
02:42 Nice. That's it, plenty of power into it. Lovely, what a shot. To go down the slope,
02:52 so the only way, so you almost want to feel like you're soft in your knees as you go down the
02:56 slope. You're back where the rock is. Feel that in there, look at the nice thing, step away,
03:01 not too close to the balls. Right Nick, so let's start with Josh. We firstly played three holes
03:09 and what were your first impressions of the way that Josh hits the ball? He drives it like I wish
03:15 I did when I was playing on tour. Phenomenal, really great golf swing, good attitude as well.
03:21 I think for Josh the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that he already
03:27 has. Playing off nine is still immense at this age and he's progressing nicely. He's going to
03:32 get naturally bigger and stronger so the rest of it should take care of itself. So for him,
03:37 I think it was a little bit more about selection of shots maybe, maybe a bit more strategy
03:42 orientated in how he could improve whilst he just naturally develops in all the other areas.
03:47 So what would be the general advice then in terms of strategy? Is there anything in there that you
03:51 can offer people that they might be able to take into their own game? I think this is helpful for
03:55 juniors in particular because we all remember being juniors, those of us that have played from
03:59 a young enough age. When you get to a level where you start to spin the golf ball, it becomes
04:04 something that's very addictive and it's a feel good and to be fair it's a testament to quality
04:10 of strike and Josh has that. But sometimes it will lead him to play a more challenging shot
04:16 than the one he needs to. The name of the game is how many shots did it take, not how pretty did
04:21 they look. So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try and instil was pick something
04:26 that we could reproduce more regularly with in terms of shot selection around the greens. So for
04:32 that we use the idea of landing it a set point on the green. Barring something weird going on with
04:37 the green like the elephant's graveyard at St Andrews, something like that which might influence
04:40 your shot. Normal green in front of you, trying to land it roughly a couple of yards on every time
04:45 and then using that landing point then to tell us what sort of shot should we be playing here,
04:50 so what club. So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us
04:54 is it tight to it, in which case it might be at the 60 degree or for Josh it'd be a 58.
04:58 Is it a 52? If there's a whole load of green to work with like maybe across the 11th, one of the
05:04 holes we played today, maybe we get down to 9, 8, 7 you know and have a nice simple action which he
05:11 does already have but he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him. But also you could
05:15 see when I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping into things to work on through the
05:19 winter and stuff, when we made him dial in on competing to land it in the right place, so
05:25 competing normally is did you get it up and down you know, whereas we moved it to can you hit,
05:30 can you deliver this skill which is hitting those landing points. Got it. Really good. So if he can
05:36 do that time and time again he's going to have an electric short game and I hazard a guess that
05:40 Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just really really effective at the simple
05:45 stuff around the greens. What's quite interesting and I was standing in the background watching all
05:48 of this as it took place is that that element of like having a challenge as you practice which is
05:53 more than just getting up and down as you say but actually can you land it on this towel or hit it
05:56 into this circle on the green. It's something that for a for a junior golfer is really going to
06:01 hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do. Practice sucks you know, it's like
06:06 I mean for especially for kids it's the boring bit you know they want to be out there trying to beat
06:11 their pals playing in competitions but we got to work at it you know that's we groom these skills
06:16 and so the best thing we can do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make it
06:21 more performance orientated which is what most practice isn't. The most guilty thing I see from
06:27 amateur golfers of the way they go about what they do is is the way they practice. Really poor and
06:32 I've been a culprit over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your
06:36 time unless you're purely grooving a movement but even still it should be conscious you should be
06:42 engaged with it because in the end you have to engage when you get out here on the golf course.
06:46 So I take any amateur anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA
06:51 to hit that tee shot. Those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel completely
06:58 different to if I said there's a range there's no one on it here's a couple hundred balls have a
07:01 good day because bored almost bored casual like and sometimes it might not even be good because
07:07 they're just not focused at all but the fact is you do that to prepare for this if we can bring
07:12 the pressure to the practice and in a fun way as well and create that challenge then one it might
07:18 also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than oh my goodness I'm
07:21 terrified the club championships next week for adults less so for kids you know to being like
07:26 this is fun it's a challenge and also you're used to having to do it under a bit of pressure
07:31 um and that means that then when you step on that first tee there is a comfort in thinking
07:36 this isn't as different sure it's different you know just like if I put someone in a position
07:40 like I have to win on tour or to play in the masters or teared up on the first tee at the
07:44 open in your home city like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them
07:48 but you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position so if we're doing that in our
07:52 practice we make the stuff on the course a lot easier. So there you have it some really simple
07:56 and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy when you're on the golf course
08:00 and also how to practice as well some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for you too
08:04 to help you improve. So there you have it some really simple and effective advice from Nick
08:09 for Josh on how to improve by building a better strategy and then how to work particularly
08:14 on his short game. Obviously Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before
08:19 and having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh
08:24 as he continues to improve his golf game and hopefully there's some stuff in there that should
08:28 really help you as well. That's it for now from Wentworth, thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time.
08:33 [Music]