In this video, Golf Monthly reader Amanda Rowley gets a golf lesson from Nick Dougherty in this episode of Game Improved.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Wentworth Club and the second in our three-part series in which we're going to try to help some amateur golfers shoot lower scores.
00:10Now, in this episode we have Amanda Rowley who is an 18 handicapper. She's only been playing the game for sort of five or six years but 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 Nick Doherty to see if Nick can offer her some tips and some strategy advice on how to play better. Right, let's get started.
00:34Right, 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. I've had quite a good summer of golf. The consistency is definitely getting better
01:02but my weakness I would say is my short game and that's down to confidence really. I've just lost my confidence with it.
01:10So you only, I think I'm all 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 then. Where would you want to get to in the next couple of years?
01:25I'd love to be eventually single figure if I can ever get there. I can't see it because I always manage to blob holes
01:32every time I go out. We know how you feel. But yeah, I mean I would love to comfortably be able to play off 12, 13
01:38and still be able to score well. So what do you think Nick will be able to help you with the most?
01:44My drive and definitely the short game. Yeah, some nice simple tips that will hopefully
01:49you'll be able to take with you onto the golf course to help you get your handicap down.
01:51Yeah.
02:21Make it look like you're going to hit it. Lovely. Or isn't it? It feels completely different. I mean like I'm, I'm hitting a high shot.
02:38You're going to feel a tiny bit more this way. If it's too low, it's going to, 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 it is. Lovely.
02:53Thank you. Thanks.
02:54Okay, so Nick, you got the chance to play three holes with Amanda and then spent some time on the range with her.
03:00Good player, strikes it really nicely. What were the sort of things that you were talking about to try and help them improve?
03:06Well, we talked about a couple of different parts of game. One was sort of short game pitching and then the long game.
03:12The long game was the easiest. These are the sweetest things to work on with people because it's a gift that gives immediately and was very easy to attain.
03:23So for her, it was something simple. Whenever there's things to amend that are pre-movement, they're always going to bear fruit quickly.
03:31Right. Okay.
03:31Because it's something that you literally stood over the ball and I made a slight adjustment as much as it might feel a little bit different.
03:38And it's not drastically different. Right.
03:40And then the rest is you just do what you do.
03:41Right.
03:42That's going to be easy to apply.
03:43Once I start saying, well, as we change direction, I want you to, you know, and I will do anything I possibly can to avoid that.
03:49I may try and provide someone with a feel, a general overwhelming feel.
03:53For her, Amanda, it was really easy.
03:55So the ball flight, I thought the T was a little low for starters, but then when I went to check out where she stood to it, she could see she's got plenty of power, moves well.
04:02You 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.
04:10Then when it got to 12th, she actually had to improve the ball flight because of the fact of there's trees in the way.
04:15I was like, how was she going to do it?
04:16And the interesting, this was a classic, again, feel versus real thing for Amanda.
04:20Where she thought 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, which is what you'd see with any top player.
04:33I mean, you think about Rory McIlroy hits up on it six degrees when he's going for the big one.
04:36It's a lot of that.
04:37And of course, we're not looking for that.
04:39But what we don't want is a really either a descending blow, certainly, even zeroing out.
04:44It put pressure on her as well with the low tee.
04:47You've got to be spot on.
04:49It's like, I'm a big fan for, if 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.
04:55Yeah.
04:56Whereas if it's at a perfect level when your club's on the ground, you ain't going to, well, you shouldn't be touching the ground when you come through the driver,
05:02which inevitably means you're going to be hitting it too low in the face.
05:05So it's going to come out flatter with too much spin, which means you're losing distance.
05:08Okay.
05:08So low flight, high spin.
05:10Not good.
05:10We want high launch, low spin, don't we?
05:12Yes.
05:12Hit the top end anyway.
05:13So we simply moved 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.
05:21So this is what you were stood to the ball on this last shot.
05:24And of course, it's not forward.
05:25It just looks great.
05:26Yeah.
05:27It looks like that's where it should be all the time.
05:29Well, that's where we're going to put it all the time.
05:31And then we're going to have it teed up higher.
05:33And it's very subtle.
05:35A movement, the shift obviously creates this a much easier position to find that up strike.
05:39And also for her, is a very easy, natural way to get away from a little bit more of that
05:44feeling of oats.
05:45She's not a lot.
05:46Ever so slightly over the top.
05:47Just moving this way a little bit will help to encourage that more inside out.
05:51Again, without having to think about not trying to do anything funky.
05:54And she got that changed pretty quickly.
05:55Immediately.
05:56Yeah.
05:56And the drives were the best drives that we saw all day.
05:58The ball flight was great.
06:00It was strong.
06:01It was long.
06:02I mean, that was, again, hitting the drive that she was using today.
06:06And you wouldn't change anything about that.
06:09That's as good as it gets.
06:10So I think that was a really, I mean, it's so easy to change.
06:13And then we did some stuff with the short game as well, which was when you get out of
06:17heavy lies, the instincts for everybody really, like I need to lift it out of that lie
06:22because it's gnarly and like, how's it going to come out?
06:25But ironically, the lifting thing is something that moves the sternum back usually.
06:31And if nothing else, certainly shallows out the attack, which means you come through more
06:34grass, 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
06:40club, not 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.
06:46A bit like out of a bunker shot, a bit like I talked with Josh there as well today.
06:49Like you've got to have more speed.
06:50Just trust, have more speed.
06:51Have more speed and it is better.
06:53Not enough speed will create way more problems.
06:56Yeah.
06:56And that's why you've got to practice these shots.
06:57You've got to convince yourself that it's the way to play it.
06:59And she demonstrated prowess in that straight away.
07:02And I think for her as well, getting a feeling for the pace.
07:04And we talked about controlling distance is something she battles with.
07:08So we talked about trying to match it on both sides because again, that becomes easy, right?
07:12Yeah.
07:12Same there.
07:13So it's quarter, quarter or half, half or three, quarter, three, quarter.
07:17And a rhythm 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 slow, 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 the ball.
07:30That's why we see like the guys, sometimes top players be next to the ball and feel the
07:35shot like that because they know exactly that pace.
07:37And then they're going to step in and just recreate it.
07:39And it makes it so much easier.
07:41Again, not an overly complicated thing for her to apply.
07:44And she did so beautifully as well.
07:45So I think she made some really big strides with that.
07:48And then what about in terms of game plan and strategy?
07:52Amanda seems to me to be getting better quite quickly.
07:55So how do you adjust your kind of game plan as an improving golfer?
07:59How should she be thinking when she's out on the golf course?
08:02I think, again, resisting the urge to force it along and building a way around the golf
08:08course, playing to your strengths is a great way to get better.
08:12You know, and you could see that today a couple of times when we looked at how to play the
08:15hole.
08:16You know, I think, for instance, like the 11th where she was hitting up the hill, picking
08:21the shot that gives you the most amount of room.
08:23So I think that's the 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 will be
08:30able to alter your target lines as you go, but make it easy.
08:34Make it as easy.
08:35Don't put yourself under the cosh to make it harder than it needs to be.
08:39Even though you think, oh, I think I can play that shot now.
08:42It's like, 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 of
08:53which there's never been another like it.
08:55Yeah.
08:55One of the most conservative golfers of all time.
08:57Is that right?
08:57Very rarely went at the flag in terms of if it didn't fit in his dispersion pattern.
09:03Right.
09:03Yeah.
09:03Never 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.
09:11And if he needed to do it, and he was arguably one, if not the greatest ever, certainly one
09:16of the top two with Jack, then we should probably take a note from that.
09:18And 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 I'm
09:25a big advocate of that. When push comes over, 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.
09:37It'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 that 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.