The Dan Plan - 10,000 Hours to Become a Pro Golfer (Dan McLaughlin)

[newtogolf]

1 minute ago, nevets88 said:

You can go on debating his "real" handicap forever. It's hard to come upon an everyone agrees conclusion. There's a piece in Golf magazine about celebrity handicaps taking data from GHIN. Nicklaus is ~2 and some celeb is ~2 as well and the celeb totally admits he's nowhere near as good as JN.

What you can more concretely argue is that any advice Dan Plan gives about the golf swing should be taken with a grain of salt. Or two. But since people do ask him for advice, it just irks me the potential for bad information being given out. Even professional teachers give out bad information, but it just annoys me people look to him for advice when he's really not qualified to give any and he is beholden more so than most to anyone who has given him equipment or provided him services.

That's where the handicap comes in.  If someone asks me for advice, I qualify it by stating I'm not a very good golfer.  While I know what a good golf swing consists of (5SK) I don't believe I'm good enough to give advice which is why I read but rarely participate in My Swing threads.

If Dan is giving advice because people believe he's a 2-3 handicap when in reality he's an 8, then he's misrepresenting himself and as you say, potentially giving bad advice.

[DrvFrShow]

9 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Keep the fine tooth comb in your pocket, but let's not pretend that just because someone has an "official" handicap (at least in the US) that it's a real indication of their ability or scores.

I know. I can play four courses locally. I play two of the "more difficult" courses and score lower on them than I do the two easier courses. They're just set up for my style of game. If I played those two courses regularly I'd be a 16 HC, but they don't have active women's clubs because they're long courses, and I like to play with the group, so I play the short easy course much more frequently and for some reason score higher on it due to the location of hazards and stuff like that. Thus my HC is a 21. So what's my real handicap? My official HC is BS.

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

That's where the handicap comes in.  If someone asks me for advice, I qualify it by stating I'm not a very good golfer.  While I know what a good golf swing consists of (5SK) I don't believe I'm good enough to give advice which is why I read but rarely participate in My Swing threads.

If Dan is giving advice because people believe he's a 2-3 handicap when in reality he's an 8, then he's misrepresenting himself and as you say, potentially giving bad advice.

I'm not even sure that a better player necessarily means a better advice giver. There are plenty of 20HC I would take advice from on this site over some of the 8s.

 

[collapse]

6 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

You can go on debating his "real" handicap forever. It's hard to come upon an everyone agrees conclusion. There's a piece in Golf Magazine about celebrity handicaps taking data from GHIN. Nicklaus is ~2 and some celeb is ~2 as well and the celeb totally admits he's nowhere near as good as JN.

What you can more concretely argue is that any advice Dan Plan gives about the golf swing should be taken with a grain of salt. Or two. But since people do ask him for advice, it just irks me the potential for bad information being given out. Even professional teachers give out bad information, but it just annoys me people look to him for advice when he's really not qualified to give any and he is beholden more so than most to anyone who has given him equipment or provided him services.

Dan is perfectly qualified to give  advice.I don't think Dan is charging around dishing out unsolicited advice...people ask him.

[natureboy]

2 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Since you're going down this road, then you'd have to agree the key to a good con is to be believable.  If Dan is claiming a 3 handicap and he can't ever break 80 in tournaments then someone is going to question the validity of his handicap (as we have) so a regression in improvement, avoidance of tournaments, or an injury would be possible remedies to help silence the naysayers.

Sure if there's a real payoff down the line - like with Madoff. The Dan Plan does not appear to me to be a path to riches even though some people wanted to support him a bit. They weren't looking for a return, though.

Dan's saying he is currently a '3' is obviously inaccurate and that's a legitimate critique. Maybe he thinks he is on the path back there (and could well be in the big picture of his time invested vs. progress) - particularly if he gets driver sorted out. He achieved 3 once so possibly that's how he still sees himself...possibly avoiding cognitive dissonance....possibly putting best foot forward. Still doesn't mean he's been lying about his scores and HCP when the tournament gap is relatively easily explained.

If he was a con guy, his HCP would still be trending down and he would not have entered another official tournament. I'm sure he's played rounds with enough players who could attest that there's no way he could break 80 on any course. I expect the local HCP committee would already have looked into it.

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Sure if there's a real payoff down the line - like with Madoff. The Dan Plan does not appear to me to be a path to riches even though some people wanted to support him a bit. They weren't looking for a return, though.

Dan's saying he is currently a '3' is obviously inaccurate and that's a legitimate critique. Maybe he thinks he is on the path back there (and could well be in the big picture of his time invested vs. progress) - particularly if he gets driver sorted out. He achieved 3 once so possibly that's how he still sees himself...possibly avoiding cognitive dissonance....possibly putting best foot forward. Still doesn't mean he's been lying about his scores and HCP when the tournament gap is relatively easily explained.

If he was a con guy, his HCP would still be trending down and he would not have entered another official tournament. I'm sure he's played rounds with enough players who could attest that there's no way he could break 80 on any course. I expect the local HCP committee would already have looked into it.

Couldn't he just say that he's currently a 5, but should be able to see 3 again once he sorts out his driver?

[natureboy]

12 minutes ago, Lihu said:

I'm not even sure that a better player necessarily means a better advice giver. There are plenty of 20HC I would take advice from on this site over some of the 8s.

 

Agreed. There's a reason some of the 'stupid monkeys' on tour employ coaches who are not as accomplished as they are. Sometimes a person who has struggled to get to a high level has more insight about the methods of success over someone who has been blessed with a lot more natural talent. That said - in golf at least - I think any plus HCP is well qualified to give advice because of how hard and how long it is to get there for anyone even those of great natural ability - there will be a significant accumulation of personal experience and insight to the journey.

Edited December 15, 2015 by natureboy

[newtogolf]

1 minute ago, natureboy said:

Sure if there's a real payoff down the line - like with Madoff. The Dan Plan does not appear to me to be a path to riches even though some people wanted to support him a bit. They weren't looking for a return, though.

Dan's saying he is currently a '3' is obviously inaccurate and that's a legitimate critique. Maybe he thinks he is on the path back there (and could well be in the big picture of his time invested vs. progress) - particularly if he gets driver sorted out. He achieved 3 once so possibly that's how he still sees himself...possibly avoiding cognitive dissonance....possibly putting best foot forward. Still doesn't mean he's been lying about his scores and HCP when the tournament gap is relatively easily explained.

If he was a con guy, his HCP would still be trending down and he would not have entered another official tournament. I'm sure he's played rounds with enough players who could attest that there's no way he could break 80 on any course. I expect the local HCP committee would already have looked into it.

I think we're mostly in agreement about his handicap so no need to delve deeper into it.

I do disagree about there being the expectation of a payoff for Dan down the line.  He may have come to the conclusion now that there's not one now but I do believe part of his motivation was a financial windfall either in sponsorship funds or as a result of his "celebrity" status.

It would be a great story if a nobody with minimal athletic ability quit his job and dedicated his life to becoming a PGA Tour pro and actually achieved the goal in his stated 10,000 hours.  I imagine he'd be doing interviews and featured on Golf Channel, ESPN, CBS, NBC and HBO Real Sports, doing commercials, etc.

[natureboy]

4 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Couldn't he just say that he's currently a 5, but should be able to see 3 again once he sorts out his driver?

That's what I would do.

[No Mulligans]

4 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

It would be a great story if a nobody with minimal athletic ability quit his job and dedicated his life to becoming a PGA Tour pro and actually achieved the goal in his stated 10,000 hours.  I imagine he'd be doing interviews and featured on Golf Channel, ESPN, CBS, NBC and HBO Real Sports, doing commercials, etc.

I would think it would have to be a nobody with extremely high athletic ability (innate talent for the game) to achieve such a goal.

[Lihu]

8 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That's what I would do.

Exactly, that's because you are a true golfer.

All+++ of the posters on this site would do the same, and that's where some of them get pissed off when Dan is being interviewed as being nearly scratch while being a 5. He doesn't tell everyone that he's miles away from scratch, but feels like it's possible or something truthful like that.

+++Stepping out on a limb here, but that's how confident I am of the other posters on this site.

[natureboy]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

 

Quote

You're skirting the issue, too: the post responds to a thing saying there hadn't been an update to hourly countdown in over four months. Calling it "dead" seems pretty reasonable.

To me Dan's injury more reasonably suggested 'on hiatus' as with expectations when Tiger Woods first went in for back injury.

Offering realistic negativity does not require schadenfreude on top.

 

13 minutes ago, Lihu said:

All+++ of the posters on this site would do the same, and that's where some of them get pissed off when Dan is being interviewed as being nearly scratch while being a 5. He doesn't tell everyone that he's miles away from scratch, but feels like it's possible or something truthful like that.

But his blogs are warts and all of his poor performance in tournaments so for me there's a bit of disconnect with why he does that. I don't think he knows he's miles away. I think he expects golf progress is more or less linear, or exponential with a big breakthrough down the road, not logarithmic.

Edited December 15, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, natureboy said:

But his blogs are warts and all of his poor performance in tournaments so for me there's a bit of disconnect with why he does that. I don't think he knows he's miles away. I think he expects golf progress is more or less linear, or exponential with a big breakthrough down the road, not logarithmic.

Agree, but I always add that little bit about his not even knowing what is his true playing level.

[nevets88]

15 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That post is different from the original in format. The original I remember well because your colleague's enthusiasm at the 'dead' plan was a surprising and significant contrast with your offer to help Dan.

It could be that the site update/migration changed the formatting. OP didn't do it, mods didn't do it, the software did or whatever migration scripts/code involved in porting the old site to the new.

 

[natureboy]

5 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

It could be that the site update/migration changed the formatting. OP didn't do it, mods didn't do it, the software did or whatever migration scripts/code involved in porting the old site to the new.

 

Maybe, but Phil would have remembered putting it in extra large font. He acted like it was always that smaller font.

Edited December 15, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

1 minute ago, natureboy said:

Maybe, but Phil would have remembered putting it in extra large font. He acted like it was that smaller font the whole time.

I think I remember that post, but don't remember the formatting. Seems like it was just standard format, but the content was so shocking to us Dan Plan posters it could have appeared that way to you? It was the end of this thread as we knew it!

[natureboy]

Just now, Lihu said:

I think I remember that post, but don't remember the formatting. Seems like it was just standard format, but the content was so shocking to us Dan Plan posters it could have appeared that way to you? It was the end of this thread as we knew it!

Nice try, but I have a semi-photographic biographical memory. It was extra large font.

[Lihu]

Just now, natureboy said:

Nice try, but I have a semi-photographic biographical memory. It was extra large font.

It was worth a shot. . .