Lesson With Nick Dougherty To Improve your Game - Episode 1 - video Dailymotion

Golf Monthly

In the first episode of Game Improved: 10 year-old Josh Jackson gets a golf lesson from Nick Dougherty

Transcript

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

Lesson With Nick Dougherty To Improve your Game - Episode 1

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