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

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

Each person is inherently blessed, or cursed, with their own natural physical abilities.  These can no doubt be improved through correct instruction and training.  At some point, they will reach the limit of those abilities, and no amount of additional training, instruction or practice will result in improvement.  That's just the way it is for all of us.

Similarly, no amount of education can turn someone into a rocket scientist if they don't have the mental capabilities. Sure, maybe they can be taught to learn algebra, then physics, then differential equations, and maybe even calculus, but to take it beyond those rudimentary basics to become an Einstein requires an Einstein brain.  And, guess what?  There was only one Einstein.

Dan can improve up to a point.  If it has taken him two years (with unlimited instruction, training and practice) to get to an 8, he clearly doesn't have the physical capabilities to make on a pro tour.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by soon_tourpro

define Natural talent please.

I think H did above pretty well. It's not a dictionary definition but you can figure out what he means.

Some people will never be able to jump as high as Michael Jordan can jump regardless of the training they receive. It's that simple.

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by soon_tourpro

define Natural talent please.

Natural: Fixed or determined by nature; pertaining to the constitution of a thing; belonging to native character; according to nature; essential; characteristic; not artificial, foreign, assumed, put on, or acquired

Talent: A special ability or aptitude.

Combining the two: Natural Talent is a special ability or aptitude fixed or determined by nature, not artificial or acquired.  To me, that definition seems right.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by soon_tourpro

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean_miller

But he probably won't due to a lack of natural talent. He wasn't recruited for this path, unlike the tennis and golf prodigies you're referring to.

define Natural talent please.

I'd say a natural ability to be good at something. Especially if the person can be good without being taught.  Talent takes many forms. You refer to one which not too many possess. The ability to focus oneself on a single task and work as hard as necessary to succeed is a talent that few people are born with.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

But he probably won't due to a lack of natural talent. He wasn't recruited for this path, unlike the tennis and golf prodigies you're referring to.

The problem I have with this argument, Sean, is that it seems like you are equating having natural born talent with starting the activity at a young age.  Let's use tennis as an example.  I don't know the backstories of any of them too well, but most of those pros surely start young, and end up cultivating their talent at a Boliterri academy or the like, right?  Well, what got them started playing tennis?  How did they know THAT was going to be their thing?  Would you not say there was a bit of luck involved, in that those born with that "natural talent" had parents who liked tennis enough to have them try it?

And wouldn't that mean that for every Roger Federer out there, there could be several just like him that were not born to parents who liked or were interested in tennis?  There has to be, right?  Nothing is that efficient.  Now what would happen if one of those people born with the "natural talent" but never given a chance to cultivate it, happened to start trying at a later age?

Could Dan not be one of those guys?  I know a lot of you think that going from nothing to 8 HDCP in 2 years proves he doesn't have it, and maybe you are right.  But my point here is simply that even if there is something as "natural talent" that doesn't preclude somebody from discovering it later in life.

P.S. Hey, John Clayton, I downloaded "Life Is Not A Game Of Perfect" as recommended.  (I'm only a quarter of the way in, but really like it so far.)  My favorite line so far (apropos to the thread) is a quote from (I forgot) ... "People generally become what they think of themselves."  (Or something close to that, I'm going off memory)

[sean_miller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean_miller

But he probably won't due to a lack of natural talent. He wasn't recruited for this path, unlike the tennis and golf prodigies you're referring to.

The problem I have with this argument, Sean, is that it seems like you are equating having natural born talent with starting the activity at a young age.

I don't really need to comment further, because I did not make that connection. Perhaps you were waiting to unleash that post on whomever made that inference, but it wasn't me so I didn't read the rest.

[Shorty]

define Natural talent please.

It is something that Dan lacks. Here we have someone who could possibly become a competent club golfer. For some bizarre reason, there are people here who think that he could play at a professional level. Very strange. If you can't identify someone to whom things come naturally or easily, there is no point having the discussion. I await comments like "Tom Kite didn't have natural talent and look what he achieved".

[soon_tourpro]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

I'd say a natural ability to be good at something. Especially if the person can be good without being taught.  Talent takes many forms. You refer to one which not too many possess. The ability to focus oneself on a single task and work as hard as necessary to succeed is a talent that few people are born with.

Natural talent if its a physical thing it has nothing to do with golf.

Working to achive a task is a learned Talent, and worth more than any natural born talent people can come up with.
You still need a a good plan and great feedback and perfect technique.

All grown and learnable.

Dan can make it, but going with that plan currently its making it way harder than it needs to be IMO.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by soon_tourpro

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean_miller

I'd say a natural ability to be good at something. Especially if the person can be good without being taught.  Talent takes many forms. You refer to one which not too many possess. The ability to focus oneself on a single task and work as hard as necessary to succeed is a talent that few people are born with.

Natural talent if its a physical thing it has nothing to do with golf.

Working to achive a task is a learned Talent, and worth more than any natural born talent people can come up with.

You still need a a good plan and great feedback and perfect technique.

All grown and learnable.

Dan can make it, but going with that plan currently its making it way harder than it needs to be IMO.

I'm sure with your plan, his lack of natural ability will be overcome. Go for it!!

[x129]

1) Yes there are guys that get missed as kids. Some of them pick up later in life and do quite well. See Larry Nelson and a couple of others. Could Dan be that guy? It was possible but after 2k+ hours of practice we know he isn't that guy. A lot more pick up and get decent (say low single digits) but don't have the ability to take it to the next level because of lack of time or desire.

2) You only have this discussion in golf because golf is something like 90% hard work and 10% talent. In a sport like T&F; you would get laughed at if you said talent didn't matter. But even at 10% (lets not quibble about the exact number) golf has a huge physical component. There is a reason why women are not playing on the PGA tour on a regular basis.

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

The problem I have with this argument, Sean, is that it seems like you are equating having natural born talent with starting the activity at a young age.  Let's use tennis as an example.  I don't know the backstories of any of them too well, but most of those pros surely start young, and end up cultivating their talent at a Boliterri academy or the like, right?  Well, what got them started playing tennis?  How did they know THAT was going to be their thing?  Would you not say there was a bit of luck involved, in that those born with that "natural talent" had parents who liked tennis enough to have them try it?

And wouldn't that mean that for every Roger Federer out there, there could be several just like him that were not born to parents who liked or were interested in tennis?  There has to be, right?  Nothing is that efficient.  Now what would happen if one of those people born with the "natural talent" but never given a chance to cultivate it, happened to start trying at a later age?

Could Dan not be one of those guys?  I know a lot of you think that going from nothing to 8 HDCP in 2 years proves he doesn't have it, and maybe you are right.  But my point here is simply that even if there is something as "natural talent" that doesn't preclude somebody from discovering it later in life.

P.S. Hey, John Clayton, I downloaded "Life Is Not A Game Of Perfect" as recommended.  (I'm only a quarter of the way in, but really like it so far.)  My favorite line so far (apropos to the thread) is a quote from (I forgot) ... "People generally become what they think of themselves."  (Or something close to that, I'm going off memory)

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by x129

1) Yes there are guys that get missed as kids. Some of them pick up later in life and do quite well. See Larry Nelson and a couple of others. Could Dan be that guy? It was possible but after 2k+ hours of practice we know he isn't that guy. A lot more pick up and get decent (say low single digits) but don't have the ability to take it to the next level because of lack of time or desire.

2) You only have this discussion in golf because golf is something like 90% hard work and 10% talent. In a sport like T&F; you would get laughed at if you said talent didn't matter. But even at 10% (lets not quibble about the exact number) golf has a huge physical component. There is a reason why women are not playing on the PGA tour on a regular basis.

It's a good thing, then, that I am not trying to be a golf instructor, because when I watch his swings from his most recent video post, he looks really good.

(Please don't take that as sarcasm or snark, because it is not.)

[yatzr]

I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe this has been brought up already.  A lot of people are getting hung up on the fact that Dan's only an 8 after two years.  That really doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me considering how much of those two years was purely short game practice.  I would guess that his handicap will drop quickly this year as he significantly expands his experience with longer clubs.  That doesn't mean that I think he'll succeed in becoming pro...I just don't think his handicap at this point is a good indicator of his progress because his skills are not balanced at all right now.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by yatzr

I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe this has been brought up already.  A lot of people are getting hung up on the fact that Dan's only an 8 after two years.  That really doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me considering how much of those two years was purely short game practice.  I would guess that his handicap will drop quickly this year as he significantly expands his experience with longer clubs.  That doesn't mean that I think he'll succeed in becoming pro...I just don't think his handicap at this point is a good indicator of his progress because his skills are not balanced at all right now.

Good point, his progress doesn't have to be strictly linear.  Along those lines, I just read that he played his first round ever with a full set of clubs on December 21.

And you don't have to read the whole thread.  Much of it is basically a big nature vs. nurture debate.

[x129]

Golf is not about having a pretty swing. It is about scoring well. Larry Nelson supposedly broke 70 with in his first 9 months of playing. I am guessing he didn't have 2500 hours of practice and playing time at that point but it might have been close.  Now as I pointed out earlier Dan hasn't tried to minimize his handicap after 2500 hours so it isn't a really fair comparison.

Quote:

It's a good thing, then, that I am not trying to be a golf instructor, because when I watch his swings from his most recent video post, he looks really good.

(Please don't take that as sarcasm or snark, because it is not.)

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by x129

Golf is not about having a pretty swing. It is about scoring well.

Of course.  I was assuming, though, that those on here saying that it's already obvious that Dan doesn't have it were basing it on his swing.

[johnclayton1982]

Quote:

I still find it amazing to think that some people on here think they are just X number of hours of practice away from being on the PGA Tour.  It's just not that easy to be a pro level athlete.

I absolutely believe that.  The problem is figuring out exactly what "practice" means.  I guess it comes from being kinda close (not that close, but playing qualifiers) and I am not a natural athlete.

My point is that for everyone on this board under 30 a "perfect" computer program could print out a six year program to turn that person into a tour pro.  I absolutely believe that.  There is some combination of hours, given a totally blank calendar for six years, that could turn any of us into a tour pro.  Now, that computer program might have to be really exact, and of course it doesn't exist, but I absolutely believe someone could make the PGA Tour if they knew exactly what to do.  I bet there would be very few people under 30 for whom the computer said "there is literally no way for you, no matter how closely and perfectly i micromanage your minutes in practice, for you to make the pro tour".

Person X and Person Y have never played golf.  Person X takes a lesson with iacas every day for a year.  Person Y takes no lessons at all.  Both play every day.  Person X has an overwhelming advantage to be a much better player; the percentages almost certainly approach 100%.  SO we know that practice can make all the difference at a low level.  Why would it change at a high level?  People have this idea that the better you get, the more talent matters, because those players have "practiced to perfection" everything else, so it must be talent.  That is nonsense.  Its backed up by nothing but our intuition.  Reading a thread on the ball flight laws, where people say we can measure it and it must be right and intuition / feel are wrong, then the exact same is used to back this talent argument.  We know that equipment, practice time, practice mode, practice topic and teacher are huge at the early stages of the game.  There is absolutely nothing to suggest that it would be different at a higher level.

Just my opinion, but yes, I believe that there is a series of practice steps over six years that anyone under 30 on this forum could take to get to the Tour.  The problem is its probably pretty exact, and such a computer doesn't exist.  But I do believe it has very little to do with talent.

[jamo]

But I do believe it has very little to do with talent.

I think you're vastly underestimating the difference between "decent player" and "Tour level."

[Williamevanl]

I've been following Dan almost this entire time. I've said a number of things from the beginning.

Practice won't continually make you better and ultimately it can make you worse. ie your handicap will trend up at times maybe never to return back in the right direction at some point.

Additional clubs (following the 3 hybrid) won't drastically better your score(in the short term), it might not help at all.

He'll probably get around a 3 handicap ultimately...

Dan has stated publicly that he would be a 3 or less by 7000 (3000 hours in) I believe his handicap is actually going to trend up soon as his performance has seemed to worsen over the last month. (which isn't unexpected) In one of his recent vids a swing coach says, "yep Dan looks swings like a 10 handicapper which is about where I'd expect him to be"

I think people lose site of the fact that he has already practiced a crazy amount of time, far more than most will in their entire lifetime. It seems particularly strange to me that people think this proves something so far getting to an 8 in a couple of years.

3,000 hours is like practicing every other day, two hours a day for 8.2 years. Consider one of your golfing buddies taking off a couple of years of work to practice golf 8 hours a day every day only to get to an 8 handicap! He would be considered a 'good' golfer by the 15 handicappers from men's league.. well done sir.

Dan needed to be within a 1-3 handi within two years. People who think otherwise likely aren't considering the asymptotic learning curve. Couple last thoughts: I've also told Dan that a pro ultimately hits every shot better than he does, proper shaft lean, trajectory smash factor, AoA... he might have spent this entire time with a pw in his hand and not have the ability of a pro with just that one club.

Do you think if Dan had done this with darts (as an example) he would gravitate to the best dart player in the world, of course not he'd hit a wall (lol) where he couldn't get any better. What are you going to do at that point scream at him to 'just be more accurate'?  A good dart throwing technique could only get you so far (I'd imagine). I know almost nothing about darts but I remember seeing a special once where the showed that the best archers/dart/target shooters in the world have a strange ability to silence brainwaves, eliminating natural tremor resulting in their unusual ability to be the best.

The equivalent to that ^ for golf I believe is the ability to relax everything, follow a proper tempo and repeat, repeat, repeat. I'm naturally a nervy guy, with terrible rhythm and spastic nervous system. The slightest thing and my heart races, my hands shake it's ridiculous. That just my genes though as my dad and my son are the same way, it's clearly not conducive to a smooth, equal tempo swing so I recognize that as a weakness (genetically) that I have. On the other hand I have tons of energy and a fast metabolism so good and bad. /rant :)

[Harmonious]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

Just my opinion, but yes, I believe that there is a series of practice steps over six years that anyone under 30 on this forum could take to get to the Tour.  The problem is its probably pretty exact, and such a computer doesn't exist.  But I do believe it has very little to do with talent.

So, do you think the same could be said for anyone to become a professional concert pianist, like Van Cliburn? Or a world-renown sculptor like Michaelangelo? Or perhaps a record-setting track star like Usain Bolt? How about an opera star like Pavarotti? I could go on and on.

In your world, does natural, God-given talent account for anything?