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 Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club
00:03and the first in a special three-part series in which we've got
00:07three normal amateur golfers and we're going to give them to Nick Doherty for
00:11the day to see whether Nick can help them play
00:14better golf. So we're here at Wentworth and we're going to head out onto the
00:17west course, they're going to play three holes with Nick and then they're
00:19going to get some individual one-on-one lesson time to see what
00:23advice Nick can offer them to help them shoot lower scores. So our
00:27first golfer is a 10-year-old junior who plays with a
00:30handicap of nine. Very impressive golfer, the question is
00:33how will Nick help him improve? Let's go and find out.
00:47Right Josh, so first question, what's your handicap?
00:51I'm off nine at the moment. And how long have you been playing for? Because you're only
00:55what, 10 years old? Yep, so I've been playing since I was two.
00:59And I take it your handicap has come down pretty quickly this year, so we're
01:02filming this in end of September, what would it have been
01:05at the start of the year do you think? So start of the year it was about
01:1014. Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of
01:15golf. Yeah and I've seen you hit the ball quite a bit and
01:18I can confirm you hit it very nicely but what's, how's your feeling about where
01:22your game is at? What's your strengths, what do you think your weaknesses are?
01:25I 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.
01:33So you're gonna have access to somebody who used to be on the European Tour, he's
01:36one of the best pundits in the game. What do you
01:38think you'd like to learn from Nick? What are the questions that you want to
01:42answer? Probably a few questions about being on
01:44tour. Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that and
01:49how hard is it to get there? Well it's a very exciting proposition in
01:54front of us. Right, let's head out to the golf course with me and Nick.
02:25We'd have more tees and you go, you're going to make a circle around.
02:29Perfect. Two. It's a little bit more backswing. Using that bounce as a thing,
02:36you throw more speed at it but you keep using the bounce. Get that foot
02:39open, get that knee over that foot. Nice.
02:45That's it, plenty of power into it. Lovely, what a shot. To go down the
02:51slope, so the only way, so you almost want to feel like you're softening up
02:55your knees as you go down the slope. You're back where the rock is, the rock
02:58rock. So feel that in there, look at the nice thing, step away, not too close to
03:02the balls.
03:05Right Nick, so let's start with Josh. We firstly played three holes
03:10and 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.
03:16Phenomenal, really great golf swing, good attitude as well.
03:21I think for Josh the most important stuff was
03:25getting the most out of the skills that he already has. Playing off nine
03:28is still immense at this age and he's progressing nicely. He's going to
03:32get naturally bigger and stronger so the rest of it should take care of
03:36itself. So for him I think it was a little bit more
03:39about selection of shots maybe, maybe a bit more strategy orientated
03:43in how he could improve whilst he just naturally develops in all the other
03:46areas. So what would be the the general advice then in terms of
03:49strategy? Is there anything in there that you can
03:51offer people that they might be able to take into their own game? I think
03:54this is helpful for juniors in particular because we all remember
03:57being 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 and it's a field goal
04:08and to be fair it's a testament to quality of strike and
04:11Josh has that. But sometimes it will lead him to play a more challenging
04:15shot than the one he needs to. The name of the game is how many shots did it
04:19take not how pretty did they look. So I think
04:21one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try and
04:24instill was pick something that we could reproduce
04:28more 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.
04:35Barring something weird going on with the green like the elephant's graveyard
04:39say Andrew some of that which might influence your shot, normal green in
04:42front of you. Trying to land it roughly a couple of
04:44yards 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
04:54is it tight to it in which case it might be the 60 degree or for Josh it'd be a
04:5858. Is it a 52? If there's a whole load of
05:01green to work with like maybe across the 11th one of the holes we played today
05:05maybe we get down to nine eight seven you know and
05:08have a nice simple action which he does already have.
05:12But he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him but also you could
05:15see when I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping into
05:18things to work on through the winter and stuff.
05:21When we made him dial in on competing to land it in the right place
05:25so competing normally is did you get it up and down you know
05:28whereas we moved it to can you deliver this skill
05:32which is like hitting those landing points. Got it. Really good.
05:35So if he can do that time and time again he's gonna have an electric short game
05:38and I hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by
05:43becoming just really really effective at the simple stuff around the green.
05:46What's quite interesting and I was standing in the background watching all
05:48of this as it took place is that that element of like having a
05:51challenge 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
05:57green. It's something that for a for a junior
06:00golfer is really going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're
06:04trying to do. Practice sucks you know it's that I mean for especially
06:07for kids it's the boring bit you know they want to be out there trying
06:10to beat their pals playing in competitions
06:13but we gotta work at it you know that's we groom these skills
06:16and so the best thing we can do and actually to get the most out of that
06:20practice is to make it more performance orientated which is what
06:23most practice isn't. The most guilty thing I see from amateur
06:27golfers of the way they go about what they do is is the way they practice
06:31really poor and I've been a culprit over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape
06:34hit, scrape hit. You're wasting your time unless you're
06:38purely grooving a movement but even still it should be conscious you
06:42should be engaged with it because in the end you have to engage when you get
06:45out here on the golf course. If I take any amateur anywhere in the world
06:48and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that tee shot
06:53those 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
07:01hundred 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
07:08but the fact is you do that to prepare for this
07:12if we can bring the pressure to the practice and in a fun way as well and
07:16create 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
07:22the club championships next week for adults less so for kids you know to
07:26being like this is fun it's a challenge and also you're used to having to do
07:29under a bit of pressure and that means that then when you step
07:33on that first tee there is a comfort in thinking
07:36this isn't as different sure it's different you know just like if I put
07:39someone in a position like I have to win on tour or to play in the masters or
07:43teared up on the first tee at the open in your home city
07:45like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them but you get used
07:49to it the more you put yourself in that position so if we're doing that in our
07:52practice we make the stuff on the course a lot easier
07:54so there you have it some really simple and effective ways to
07:57think about game plan and strategy when you're on the golf course and also how
08:01to 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
08:07and effective advice from nick for josh on how to improve by building a
08:11better strategy and then how to work particularly
08:14on his short game obviously nick is a player who's been there and who's done
08:18it before and having that kind of tour player
08:21level insight is something that should really help josh
08:24as he continues to improve his golf game and hopefully there's some stuff in
08:28there that should really help you as well that's it for now from Wentworth
08:31thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time