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
01:56for me, Nick.
01:58Okay, let's go.
02:03We'd have more tees and you're going to make a circle around.
02:31Perfect. Two.
02:34A little bit more back swing. Using that bounce is the thing.
02:36You throw more speed at it, but you keep using the bounce.
02:39Get that foot open. Get that knee over that foot.
02:44Nice. That's it. Plenty of power into it.
02:48Lovely. What a shot.
02:50To go down the slope. So the only way...
02:52So you almost want to feel like you're soft in your knees as you go down the slope, yeah?
02:56You're back where the rock is the rock, rock.
02:58So feel that in there. Look at the nice thing. Step away, not too close to the ball.
03:04Right, Nick. So let's start with Josh.
03:06We firstly played three holes.
03:08And what were your first impressions of the way that Josh hits the ball?
03:12He drives it like I wish I did when I was playing on tour. Phenomenal.
03:17Really great golf swing. Good attitude as well.
03:20I think for Josh, the most important stuff was getting the most out of the skills that he already has.
03:26Playing off nine, you know, is still immense at this age.
03:30And he's progressing nicely. He's going to get naturally bigger and stronger.
03:34So the rest of it should take care of itself.
03:36So for him, I think it was a little bit more about selection of shots maybe.
03:40Maybe a bit more strategy-orientated in how he could improve,
03:44whilst he just naturally develops in all the other areas.
03:46So what would be the general advice then in terms of strategy?
03:49Is there anything in there that you can offer people that they might be able to take into their own game?
03:52I think this is helpful for juniors in particular, because we all remember being juniors,
03:57those of us that have played from a young enough age.
03:59When you get to a level where you start to spin the golf ball,
04:02it becomes something that's very addictive.
04:05And to be fair, it's a testament to quality of strike.
04:10And Josh has that.
04:12But sometimes it will lead him to play a more challenging shot than the one he needs to.
04:16The name of the game is how many shots did it take, not how pretty did they look?
04:20So I think one of the things with Josh that I wanted to try and instill was,
04:25pick something that we could reproduce more regularly with it in terms of shot selection around the greens.
04:31So 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 at St Andrews,
04:39some of that which might influence your shot, normal green in front of you.
04:42Trying to land it roughly a couple of yards on every time.
04:45And then using that landing point then to tell us what sort of shot should we be playing here.
04:49So what club?
04:50So wherever that flag is in relation to that landing point will tell us,
04:53is it tight to it?
04:54In which case it might be the 60 degree or for Josh, it'd be a 58.
04:58Is it a 52?
04:59If there's a whole load of green to work with, like maybe across the 11th,
05:03one of the holes we played today, maybe we get down to 9, 8, 7, you know,
05:07and have a nice simple action, which he does already have.
05:11Yeah.
05:12But he was picking a shot that was much more basic for him.
05:14But also you could see when I set him up and again, this is something sort of tapping into things to work on through the winter and stuff.
05:20When we made him dial in on competing to land it in the right place.
05:24So competing normally is, did you get it up and down?
05:27You know, whereas we moved it to, can you hit, can you deliver this skill?
05:31Yes.
05:32Which is hitting those landing points.
05:33Got it.
05:34Really good.
05:35So 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 effective at the simple stuff around the greens.
05:45Yeah.
05:46And what's quite interesting, and I was standing in the background watching all of this as it took place,
05:49is that that element of like having 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?
05:57Yeah.
05:58It's something that for a, for a junior golfer is really going to hopefully engage a little bit more in what you're trying to do.
06:04Practice sucks.
06:05You know, it's that, I mean, for, especially for kids, it's the boring bit.
06:08You know, they want to be out there trying to beat their pals, playing in competitions, but we got to work at it.
06:13You know, that, that's how we groom these skills.
06:16And so the best thing we can do and actually to get the most out of that practice is to make it more performance orientated,
06:22which is what most practice isn't.
06:24The most guilty thing I see from amateur golfers of the way they go about what they do is the way they practice.
06:30Really poor.
06:31And I've been a culprit over the years as well.
06:33Right.
06:34Scrape hit, scrape hit, scrape hit.
06:35You're wasting your time unless you're purely grooving a movement.
06:39But even still, it should be conscious.
06:41You should be engaged with it because in the end you have to engage when you get out here on the golf course.
06:45If I take any amateur anywhere in the world and put them on that first tee in the BMW PGA to hit that tee shot,
06:51those feelings, how those arms feel, how they feel inside will feel completely different to if I said,
06:58there's a range, there's no one on it.
06:59Here's a couple hundred balls.
07:00Have a good day.
07:01Because bored, almost bored, casual.
07:04And sometimes it might not even be good because they're just not focused at all.
07:07But the fact is you do that to prepare for this.
07:10If we can bring the pressure to the practice and in a fun way as well and create that challenge,
07:16then one, it might also shift this to feeling more like a fun challenge rather than,
07:20oh my goodness, I'm terrified at the club championships next week for adults, less so for kids.
07:25You know, to being like, this is fun.
07:26It's a challenge.
07:27And also you're used to having to do it under a bit of pressure.
07:30And that means that then when you step on that first tee, there is a comfort in thinking,
07:35this isn't as different.
07:36Sure, it's different.
07:37You know, just like if I put someone in a position like I have to win on tour or to play in the Masters
07:42or teared up on the first tee at the Open in your home city.
07:44Like that would be terrifying and feel uncomfortable to them.
07:47But you get used to it the more you put yourself in that position.
07:50So if we're doing that in our practice, we make the stuff on the course a lot easier.
07:53So there you have it, some really simple and effective ways to think about game plan and strategy
07:58when you're on the golf course and also how to practice as well.
08:01Some simple advice there for Josh and hopefully for you too to help you improve.
08:05So there you have it, some really simple and effective advice from Nick for Josh on how to improve
08:10by building a better strategy and then how to work particularly on his short game.
08:15Obviously, Nick is a player who's been there and who's done it before.
08:18And having that kind of tour player level insight is something that should really help Josh
08:23as he continues to improve his golf game.
08:26And hopefully there's some stuff in there that should really help you as well.
