- 09/04/2025
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 how's your feeling about where your game is at?
01:22What's your strengths? What do you think your weaknesses are? I think, yeah, golf is good at
01:26the 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 best pundits in the game. What do you think you'd like to learn from Nick?
01:40What are the questions that you want to answer? Probably a few questions about being on tour.
01:45Oh yeah. I'd say I'm quite interested about that. And how hard is it to get there?
01:51Well, it's a very exciting proposition in front of us. Right. Let's head out to the golf course.
01:56Of course, you meet Nick.
01:57Okay.
01:58Let's head back.
01:58Thanks.
01:59Thanks, guys.
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02:26We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around. Perfect, two, a little bit
02:35more backswing. Using that bounce is the thing, you throw more speed at it but you keep using
02:39the bounce. Get that foot open, get that knee over that foot. Nice. That's it, plenty of
02:47power 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
03:09and 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 well.
03:21I think for Josh, the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that
03:26he already has. Playing off nine, you know, is still immense at this age and he's progressing
03:32nicely. He's going to get naturally bigger and stronger. So the rest of it should take
03:36care of itself. So for him, I think it was a little bit more about selection of shots maybe,
03:41maybe a bit more strategy orientated in how he could improve whilst he just naturally develops
03:46in all the other areas. So what would be the general advice then in terms of strategy? Is there anything
03:50in there that you can offer people that they might be able to take into their own game as well?
03:54I think this is helpful for juniors in particular because we all remember being juniors, those
03:58of us that have played from a young enough age. When you get to a level where you start to
04:02spin the golf ball, it becomes something that's very addictive. To be fair, it's a testament to
04:10quality of strike and Josh 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 take, not
04:20how pretty did they look. So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try and
04:24instill was pick something that we could reproduce more regularly with it in terms of shot selection
04:31around the greens. So for that we use the idea of landing it a set point on the green. Barring
04:36something weird going on with a green like the elephant's graveyard at St Andrews, some of that,
04:40which might influence your shot. Normal green in front of you. Trying to land it roughly a couple
04:44of yards on every time and then using that landing point then to tell us what sort of shot should we
04:49be playing here. So what club. So 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 would be a 58.
04:59Is it a 52? If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe across the 11th one of the holes
05:04we played today, maybe we get down to nine, eight, seven, you know, and have a nice simple action,
05:10which he does already have. But he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him. But also
05:15you could see when I set him up and again, this is something sort of tapping into things to work
05:19on through the winter and stuff. When 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, whereas we moved it to,
05:30can 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,
05:44really effective at the simple stuff around the greens. And what's quite interesting,
05:47and I was standing in the background watching all of this as it took place, is that that element of like
05:50having a challenge as you practice, which is more than just getting up and down as you say,
05:54but actually, can you land it on this towel or hit it into this circle on the green? It's something that,
05:59for a, for a junior golfer is really going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what
06:04you're trying to do. Practice sucks. You know, it's that, I mean, for, especially for kids,
06:08it's the boring bit. You know, they want to be out there trying to beat their pals,
06:12playing in competitions, but we got to work at it. You know, that's how we groom these skills.
06:17So the best thing we can do and actually to 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
06:27amateur golfers of the way they go about what they do is, is the way they practice really poor.
06:32And I've been a culprit over the years as well. Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit.
06:35You're wasting your time unless you're purely grooving a movement, but even still it should
06:41be conscious. You should be engaged with it because in the end you have to engage when you get out here
06:45on the golf course. If I take any amateur anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the
06:50BMW PGA to hit that tee shot, those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel
06:57completely different 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. And sometimes it might not
07:06even be good because they're just not focused at all. But 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 create that challenge,
07:17then one, it might also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than,
07:21oh my goodness, I'm terrified at the club championships next week. For adults, less so
07:25for kids. You know, to being like, this is fun, it's a challenge. And also you're used to having
07:29to do it under a bit of pressure. And that means that then when you step on that first tee, there
07:34is a comfort in thinking, this 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 teared up on the first tee
07:44at the open in your home city, like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them.
07:48But you get used to 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. So there you have it, some really simple
07:56and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy when you're on the golf course, and also
08:01how to practice as well. Some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for you too, to help you
08:05improve. So there you have it, some really simple and effective advice from Nick for Josh on how to
08:10improve by building a better strategy and then how to work particularly on his short game. Obviously,
08:16Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before. And having that kind of tour player level
08:21insight is something that should really help Josh as he continues to improve his golf game. And
08:26hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really help you as well. That's it for now from
08:30Wentworth. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.
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