In this video, Golf Monthly reader Amanda Rowley gets a golf lesson from Nick Dougherty in this episode of Game Improved.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club and the second in our three-part series
00:06in which we're going to try to help some amateur golfers shoot lower scores.
00:09Now in this episode, we have Amanda Rowley who is an 18 handicapper.
00:15She's only been playing the game for sort of five or six years,
00:18but she's managed to get her handicap down to 18.
00:21She's going to get the chance to play three holes here on the West Course at Wentworth and then head to the range all with
00:26Nick Doherty to see if Nick can offer her some tips and some strategy advice on how to play better.
00:32Right, let's get started.
00:46Right, so Amanda, tell us a bit. What's your handicap and where's your golf at at the moment?
00:51My handicap at the moment is 17.7, so I play off at my club about 19-20.
00:57I've had quite a good summer of golf.
01:00The consistency is definitely getting better,
01:03but my weakness I would say is my short game and that's down to confidence really. I've just lost my confidence with it.
01:09So you only, I think we're right in saying that you only started playing golf a few years ago.
01:14Yeah, 2016 and then obviously we've had COVID in between, so a few years off.
01:18Okay, so you've come down quickly. Where would you want to get to in the next couple of years time?
01:24I'd love to be eventually a single figure if I can ever get there.
01:29I can't see it because I always manage to blob holes every time I go out.
01:33We know how you feel.
01:34But yeah, I mean, I would love to comfortably be able to play off 12-13 and still be able to score well.
01:41So what do you think Nick will be able to help you with the most?
01:44My drive and definitely the short game.
01:46Yeah, some nice simple tips that we'll hopefully be able to take with you onto the golf course to help you get your handicap down.
02:17Love the shot.
02:27Is it like you're going to hit it?
02:30Lovely, isn't it? It feels completely different.
02:32I mean, like I'm hitting a high shot.
02:38You're going to feel a tiny bit more this way.
02:40If it's too low it's going to make us want to sort of hit the ground first.
02:44Nice, to the swing, depending on the distance and it's going to have that same flow, whatever
02:50it is.
02:51Lovely.
02:53Thanks.
02:54Okay, so Nick, you got the chance to play three holes with Amanda and then spend some
02:58time on the range with her.
03:01Good player, strikes it really nicely.
03:02What were the sort of things that you were talking about to try and help her improve?
03:06Well we talked about a couple of different parts of the game.
03:08One was sort of short game pitching and then the long game.
03:12The long game was the easiest.
03:14These are the sweetest things to work on with people because it's a gift that gives immediately
03:21and was very easy to attain.
03:23So for her it was something simple.
03:25Whenever there's things to amend that are pre-movement, they're always going to bear
03:30through quickly because it's something that you literally stood over the ball and I made
03:35a slight adjustment as much as it might feel a little bit different and it's not drastically
03:39different and then the rest is you just do what you do.
03:42That's going to be easy to apply.
03:43Once I start saying, well as we change direction, I will do anything I possibly can to avoid
03:49that.
03:50I may try and provide someone with a general overwhelming feel, but for Amanda it was really
03:54easy.
03:55So the ball flight, I thought the tee was a little low for starters, but then when I
03:59went to check out where she stood to it, she could see she's got plenty of power, moves
04:02well, you can see that she's strong in the way that she moves the club, but it was flatter
04:06so I could see a big improvement could be made with the ball flight.
04:09I noticed that in the 11th and when it got to 12, she actually had to improve the ball
04:12flight because of the fact of there's trees in the way, I was like, how is she going to
04:16do it?
04:17And the interesting, this was a classic again, feel versus real thing for Amanda, where she
04:21thought the ball was in her stance actually wasn't where it really was.
04:26So what we did to improve it was I wanted a little bit more tilt in her upper body,
04:32which is what you see with any top player.
04:33When you think about Rory McIlroy hits up on it six degrees when he's going for the
04:36big one, it's a lot of that and of course we're not looking for that, but what we don't
04:39want is either a descending blow certainly, even zeroing out is like, it put pressure
04:46on her as well with the low T, you've got to be spot on, it's like I'm a big fan for
04:50if anything, give it a little bit too much air.
04:52It also means that you can obviously tee it up nice and high and meet the ball up here.
04:55Whereas if it's at a perfect level when your club's on the ground, you ain't going to where
05:00you should be touching the ground when you come through the driver, which inevitably
05:03means you're going to be hitting it too low in the face, so it's going to come out flatter
05:06with too much spin, which means you're losing distance.
05:08So low flight, high spin, not good, we want high launch, low spin, don't we?
05:12Yes.
05:13Hit the top end anyway.
05:14So we simply move the ball further forward in the stance, which to Amanda felt way forward.
05:18All I had to do was to take a picture and show her, so this is what you would stood
05:22to the ball on this last shot and of course it's not forward, it just looks great.
05:26Yeah, it looks like that's where it should be all the time and that's where we're going
05:30to put it all the time and then we're going to have it teed up higher and it's very subtle
05:35a movement, the shift obviously creates a much easier position to find that up strike
05:39and also for her, it's a very easy, natural way to get away from a little bit more of
05:44that feeling of, she's not a lot, ever so slightly over the top, just moving this way
05:48a little bit will help to encourage that more inside out, not trying to do anything funky.
05:53And she got that change pretty quickly.
05:55Immediately.
05:56And the drives were the best drives that we saw all day.
05:58The ball flight was great, it was strong, it was long, I mean that was again hitting
06:04the drive that she was using today and you wouldn't change anything about that, that's
06:09as good as it gets.
06:10So I think that was a really, I mean it's so easy to change and then we did some stuff
06:14with the short game as well which was when you get out of heavy lies, the instincts for
06:19everybody really, I need to lift it out of that lie because it's gnarly and how's it
06:24going to come out, but ironically the lifting thing is something that moves the sternum
06:30back usually and if nothing else, certainly shallows out the attack which means you come
06:34through more grass which means it won't come out.
06:36So ironically we have to make peace when we're going down into the ground and it's the club,
06:41not me, that gets the ball out of the grass.
06:43But going in through that grass as well we had to make peace with, got to hit it harder.
06:46Bit like out of a bunker shot, bit like I talked with Josh there as well today, you've
06:49got to have more speed, just trust, have more speed, have more speed and it is better.
06:54Not enough speed will create way more problems.
06:56Yeah and that's why you've got to practice these shots, you've got to convince yourself
06:58that it's the way to play it.
06:59Absolutely and she demonstrated her prowess in that straight away and I think for her
07:02as well, getting a feeling for the pace and we talked about controlling distance is something
07:06she battles with.
07:08So we talked about trying to match it on both sides, because again that becomes easy right?
07:12Yeah.
07:13Same there, so it's quarter, quarter or half, half or three quarter, three quarter and a
07:18rhythm though like that, that stays the same.
07:20Whereas if I'm always going to be different, sometimes short and quick, sometimes longer
07:24and slightly slower, how do you know?
07:26Really hard to judge the pace.
07:27Whereas then if I've got the same feeling all the time, I can stand next to her.
07:30And that's why we see the guys, sometimes top players being next to the ball and feel
07:34the shot like that, because they know exactly that pace and then they're going to step in
07:38and just recreate it and it makes it so much easier.
07:41Again, not an overly complicated thing for her to apply and she did so beautifully as
07:45well so I think she made some really big strides with that.
07:48And then what about in terms of game plan and strategy, Amanda seems to me to be getting
07:54better quite quickly.
07:55So how do you adjust your game plan as an improving golfer?
08:00How should she be thinking when she's out on the golf course?
08:03I think again, resisting the urge to force it along and building her way around the golf
08:08course, playing to your strengths is a great way to get better.
08:12You could see that today a couple of times when we looked at how to play the hole.
08:17I think for instance, like the 11th where she was hitting up the hill, picking the shot
08:21that gives you the most amount of room.
08:23So I think that's a strategy that applies across the board regardless of ability.
08:26But having the patience that you're naturally going to get better each time and you'll be
08:29able to alter your target lines as you go, but make it easy.
08:35Don't put yourself under the cush to make it harder than it needs to be.
08:39Even though you think, oh I think I can play that shot now, that's fine in practice.
08:44But in tournament stuff, play smart because generally the best players, and it's the biggest
08:48ever misconception about Tiger Woods, is that we think, well this is a box office golfer
08:53of which there's never been another like it.
08:55One of the most conservative golfers of all time.
08:58We rarely went at the flag in terms of if it didn't fit in his dispersion pattern.
09:04Never took a risk.
09:05Played smart.
09:06Always picked the right side of the hole to give him a buffer.
09:08So playing smart gives you room for error and if he needed to do it and he was arguably
09:13one, if not the greatest ever, certainly one of the top two with Jack, then we should probably
09:18take a note from that and we probably play too aggressively at times.
09:21So playing within ourselves, as much as it's sometimes fun to go for the hero shot and
09:25I'm a big advocate of that.
09:27Push comes to shove, if we're talking handicap, let's play smart.
09:29Yeah, so there you go.
09:31If you want to get your handicap down then sometimes that patience, it sounds easy but
09:36it requires a lot of discipline, it's well worth giving it a go.
09:39So there you have it.
09:40That's our look at Amanda's game and Nick's advice to help her shoot lower scores.
09:44I think the key thing here is the advice coming from Nick, really simple, really effective.
09:50Hopefully it's something that Amanda can take forward with her game to help her shoot lower
09:53scores and hopefully there's some bits in there that might help you as well as you play
09:58golf in the future.
09:59But that's it for now from Wentworth.
10:01Thanks very much for watching.
10:02We'll see you next time.