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 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 it
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 was about 14.
01:11Okay. So it's come down quite a lot because of summer and playing a lot of golf. Yeah, and I've seen you hit the
01:17ball quite a bit and I 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? I think, yeah, golf is
01:26good at the moment. I'd say my strength is probably my driving. I could probably still improve my wedges,
01:32chipping and putting. So you're going to have access to somebody who used to be on the European
01:36tour. He's one of the sort of best pundits in the game. What do you think you'd like to learn
01:40from Nick? What are the questions that you want to answer? Probably a few questions about being on tour.
01:44Oh, yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that. And how hard is it to get there? Well,
01:52it's a very exciting proposition in front of us. Right, let's head out to the golf course.
01:57Me, Nick.
01:57Me, Nick.
02:03Me, Nick.
02:05Me, Nick.
02:21We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around, perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more back swing. Using that bounce is the thing, you throw more speed at it, but you
02:39keep using the bounce. Get that foot open, get that knee over that foot. Nice, plenty
02:47of power 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. Right Nick, so let's start with Josh. We firstly played three holes
03:11and what were your first impressions of the way that Josh hits the ball? He drives it like
03:14I wish I did when I was playing on tour. Phenomenal. Really great golf swing, good attitude as
03:20well. I think for Josh, the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills
03:26that he already has. Playing off nine is still immense at this age and he's progressing nicely.
03:32He's going to get naturally bigger and stronger, so the rest of it should take care of itself.
03:37So 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. So what would be the general advice then
03:49in terms of strategy? Is there anything in there that you can offer people that they might
03:52be able to take into their own games as well? Especially, I think this is helpful for juniors
03:55in particular because we all remember being juniors, those of us that have played from a young
03:59enough age. When you get to a level where you start to spin the golf ball, it becomes something
04:05that's very addictive. To be fair, it's a testament to quality of strike and Josh has that. But
04:13sometimes it 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 did it take, not how pretty did they look. So I think one of the
04:22things with Josh that I wanted to try and instill was pick something that we could reproduce
04:28more regularly with it in terms of shot selection around the greens. So for that we use the idea
04:33of landing it a set point on the green. Barring something weird going on with the green like the
04:37elephant's graveyard at St Andrews, something like that which might influence your shot. Normal green
04:42in front of you. Trying to land it roughly a couple yards on every time and then using that landing
04:47point then to tell us what sort of shot should we be playing here. So what club. So wherever that flag
04:52is in relation to that landing point will tell us is it tight to it, in which case it might be the 60
04:56degree or for Josh it would be a 58. Is it a 52. If there's a whole load of green to work with like
05:02maybe across the 11th one of the holes we played today maybe we get down to 9, 8, 7 you know and
05:08have a nice simple action which he does already have. But he was picking a shot that was much more
05:14basic for him. But also you could see when I set him up and again this is something sort of tapping
05:18into things to work on through the winter and stuff. When we made him dial in on competing to land it
05:24in the right place. So competing normally is did you get it up and down you know. Whereas we moved
05:29it to can you hit, can you deliver this skill which is hitting those landing points. Got it.
05:34Really good. So if he can do that time and time again he's going to have an electric short game
05:38and I'd hazard a guess that Josh will shave a ton of strokes off his game by becoming just really really
05:44effective at the simple stuff around the greens. And what's quite interesting and I was standing in the
05:48background watching all of this as it took place is that that element of like having a challenge as you
05:52practice which is more than just getting up and down as you say but actually can you land it on this
05:56towel or hit it into this circle on the green. It's something that for a for a junior golfer is really
06:01going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do. Practice sucks you know it's
06:06that I mean for especially for kids it's the boring bit you know they want to be out there trying to
06:11beat their pals playing in competitions but we got to work at it you know that that's how we groom these skills
06:16and so the best thing we can do and actually get the most out of that practice is to make it more
06:21performance orientated which is what most 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 really poor and I've been a
06:32culprit over the years as well scrape hit scrape hit scrape hit you're wasting your time unless you're
06:38purely grooving a movement but even still it should be conscious you should be engaged with it because
06:43in the end you have to engage when you're getting out here on the golf course if I take any amateur
06:47anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that tee shot those feelings
06:54how those arms feel how they feel inside will feel completely different to if I said there's a range
06:59there's no 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 do
07:09that to prepare for this if we can bring the pressure to the practice and in a fun way as
07:15well and 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 the club championships next week for adults less so for kids
07:25you know to being like this is fun it's a challenge and also you're used to having to do it under a bit
07:30of pressure and that means that then when you step on 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 someone in a position like
07:40I have to win on tour or to play in the masters or teared up on the first tee at the open in your home
07:44city like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them but you get used to it the
07:49more you put yourself in that position so if we're doing that in our practice we make the stuff on the
07:53course a lot easier so there you have it some really simple and effective ways to think about game
07:58plan and strategy when you're on the golf course and also how to practice as well some simple advice
08:03there for Josh and hopefully for you too to 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 better strategy and then
08:12how to work particularly on 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 level insight is something that should really help Josh
08:24as he continues to improve his golf game and hopefully there's some stuff in there that should
08:28really help you as well that's it for now from Wentworth thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time
08:33you