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

[nevets88]

This is Dan's problem. Most tour players were in their early teens or even younger where Dan is now. For example, Mike Weir started at I dunno, 10 yo? Earned his card in his late 20s? I know this is a duh statement, but people are still following this guy, he set for himself an impossible goal.

[johnclayton1982]

Quote:

Not sure how revealing it is about the other posters who are probably better players than Dan. My perspective is entirely from reading his writeup, and seeing myself in a similar situation.

The point of my post was that it is very hard (impossible?) to self-diagnose swing errors, even with video.  He needs a good teacher.

[nevets88]

The point of my post was that it is very hard (impossible?) to self-diagnose swing errors, even with video.  He needs a good teacher.

He has a pro - he's not teaching himself:

[Jeremie Boop]

The point of my post was that it is very hard (impossible?) to self-diagnose swing errors, even with video.  He needs a good teacher.

I'm not sure that's entirely true, some problems are readily apparent through video analysis. I was able to see my left knee bend point towards my right leg instead of straight towards my toes causing my head to move. I was also able to see that I was not in line with my left wrist at impact. Fixing these 2 things will help majorly when it comes to creating a better swing and more reliable and consistent results. You can also see if you are coming over the top, are too flat, standing too close/far from the ball, have the ball placement wrong, so on and etc. Now, I do agree when it comes to fine tuning and/or minor adjustments it would take a much more trained and educated eye to spot problems.

[saevel25]

This is Dan's problem. Most tour players were in their early teens or even younger where Dan is now.

For example, Mike Weir started at I dunno, 10 yo? Earned his card in his late 20s?

I know this is a duh statement, but people are still following this guy, he set for himself an impossible goal.

There are also some pro's who started later in life as well. Some people start golf early and probably still suck today. Not sure if what you are saying is a common trend at all. Given it is more likely to help if you start early, but I don't think it discredits your chances if you don't.

The point of my post was that it is very hard (impossible?) to self-diagnose swing errors, even with video.  He needs a good teacher.

If you don't know what to look for then yes it is nearly impossible to self diagnose a swing. I do think a good teacher is a must, especially if that person isn't in the mold of a Bubba Watson were they have an uncanny ability to sense and manipulate the club in their swing, and have it do what they want. I am sure that instructors are able to see faults in their own swings very easily. People are not blind to their own swing because it is themselves they are viewing.

[14ledo81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

The point of my post was that it is very hard (impossible?) to self-diagnose swing errors, even with video.  He needs a good teacher.

I'm not sure that's entirely true, some problems are readily apparent through video analysis. I was able to see my left knee bend point towards my right leg instead of straight towards my toes causing my head to move. I was also able to see that I was not in line with my left wrist at impact. Fixing these 2 things will help majorly when it comes to creating a better swing and more reliable and consistent results. You can also see if you are coming over the top, are too flat, standing too close/far from the ball, have the ball placement wrong, so on and etc. Now, I do agree when it comes to fine tuning and/or minor adjustments it would take a much more trained and educated eye to spot problems.

If someone knows what to look for, it may be fairly easy to see what is wrong.  The correct order to fix or even how to fix is (IMO) where the necessary expertise comes in.

[Jeremie Boop]

If someone knows what to look for, it may be fairly easy to see what is wrong.  The correct order to fix or even how to fix is (IMO) where the necessary expertise comes in.

True, or you can fix them in order of the 5 keys, which is what I'm doing right now. Steady head with the knee flex *key 1*, then I'm moving to getting my wrist in line *key 4*. However, if I wasn't aware of the keys I can see why it would be tougher to figure out order of importance for correction.

[14ledo81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

If someone knows what to look for, it may be fairly easy to see what is wrong.  The correct order to fix or even how to fix is (IMO) where the necessary expertise comes in.

True, or you can fix them in order of the 5 keys, which is what I'm doing right now. Steady head with the knee flex *key 1*, then I'm moving to getting my wrist in line *key 4*. However, if I wasn't aware of the keys I can see why it would be tougher to figure out order of importance for correction.

Even this is not always so simple.  Have you taken a look at my swing thread?  To me, the obvious issue was key #3 (inline impact).  Mike did not even address that right away (or so I thought).  First I was told to fix posture.  Then he had me soften my right arm.  Now he is having me work on not sliding my right elbow behind me in the backswing.  All of these items, if done properly, should help me attain a proper key #3.

Pretty easy for me to see the throwing away of angles early in my downswing.  Knowing what to do, and in what order, is hard.

[Jeremie Boop]

Even this is not always so simple.  Have you taken a look at my swing thread?  To me, the obvious issue was key #3 (inline impact).  Mike did not even address that right away (or so I thought).  First I was told to fix posture.  Then he had me soften my right arm.  Now he is having me work on not sliding my right elbow behind me in the backswing.  All of these items, if done properly, should help me attain a proper key #3.

Pretty easy for me to see the throwing away of angles early in my downswing.  Knowing what to do, and in what order, is hard.

I see what you are saying, subtle changes to other things fixing an issue. Thankfully my steady head issue is a very obvious and easy fix. Once I get that to be more natural I'll probably be back with another video posting to get the rest of the swing fixes. I may just go from steady head to weight forward drills first though, even though my weight forward seems to be good I'd hate to assume that only to be told to go back and work on it.

The better the swing the harder it is to see and/or fix the flaws I guess.

[nevets88]

Even this is not always so simple.  Have you taken a look at my swing thread?  To me, the obvious issue was key #3 (inline impact).  Mike did not even address that right away (or so I thought).  First I was told to fix posture.  Then he had me soften my right arm.  Now he is having me work on not sliding my right elbow behind me in the backswing.  All of these items, if done properly, should help me attain a proper key #3.

Pretty easy for me to see the throwing away of angles early in my downswing.  Knowing what to do, and in what order, is hard.

BINGO AMUNDO!

[RandallT]

http://www.roit.org/2014_results.php This is his 3-day tourney starting today (Friday). No results posted but it's only 7:30 there. Maybe still players on course

[LuciusWooding]

Looks like he shot an 88. Shocking. Until he breaks 80 in a tournament I can't even begin to take him seriously.

[flopster]

Looks like he shot an 88. Shocking. Until he breaks 80 in a tournament I can't even begin to take him seriously.

Dan is looking more and more like a farce with a 2.6 index. It just seems for the sake of his plan he manipulates his index to keep people interested to donate, if he doesn't start to put it together in the next 6 months it may be time to go back to work in the real world.

[nevets88]

Looks like he shot an 88. Shocking. Until he breaks 80 in a tournament I can't even begin to take him seriously.

Well, he's still got two rounds. Looking at his Tweet photos, guy got interviewed by CNN recently. Got to admit, I could learn a thing or two about marketing from him. How he garnered so much attention, that, was ninja. From the Harvard Business Review: One anecdotal example of how the S-curve model can help us better predict the future is the experience of golfer Dan McLaughlin. Never having played 18 holes of golf, in April 2010, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer to pursue a goal of becoming a top professional golfer through 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. During the first 18 months, improvement was slow as McLaughlin first practiced his putting, chipping, and his drive. Then, as he began to put the various pieces together, improvement accelerated, consistent with hypergrowth behavior. While he didn’t track how quickly his handicap decreased, making it impossible for us to build an S-curve, 28 months into the project, he has surpassed 91% of the 26 million golfers who register a handicap with the US Golf Association (USGA) database. Not surprisingly, his rate of improvement (if measured as handicap) is now slowing as he faces competition from the top 10% amateur golfers.

[flopster]

Well, he's still got two rounds. Looking at his Tweet photos, guy got interviewed by CNN recently. Got to admit, I could learn a thing or two about marketing from him. How he garnered so much attention, that, was ninja.

From the Harvard Business Review:

One anecdotal example of how the S-curve model can help us better predict the future is the experience of golfer Dan McLaughlin. Never having played 18 holes of golf, in April 2010, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer to pursue a goal of becoming a top professional golfer through 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. During the first 18 months, improvement was slow as McLaughlin first practiced his putting, chipping, and his drive. Then, as he began to put the various pieces together, improvement accelerated, consistent with hypergrowth behavior. While he didn’t track how quickly his handicap decreased, making it impossible for us to build an S-curve, 28 months into the project, he has surpassed 91% of the 26 million golfers who register a handicap with the US Golf Association (USGA) database. Not surprisingly, his rate of improvement (if measured as handicap) is now slowing as he faces competition from the top 10% amateur golfers.

I highly doubt this regardless of what his index is.

[nevets88]

I hope the best for the guy and I'll say it again but it's not the handicap/score discrepancy that bothers me or the donation button on his website but that it's 2014 and given the resources he had/has at his disposal with tech advances and improved instruction etc... despite limited funds, he really could have made larger strides plus he really didn't follow through on working the deliberate practice angle - all I see is a countdown clock. He added little in terms of advancing knowledge of how we learn imho, the less progress he makes, the less people will take deliberate practice seriously. The blog though I admittedly gleaned over his writing tends to be too long, contained little about practicing, figuring out different ways to get better. I mean what really differentiates how he's practicing between most golfers aside from the time distraction that is the media machine?

[David in FL]

Looks like he shot an 88. Shocking. Until he breaks 80 in a tournament I can't even begin to take him seriously.

T158 so far.... Ouch!

[newtogolf]

Dan has gotten himself into a tight spot.  He needed his handicap to be low single digits by now in order to maintain interest and donations to his site.  Unfortunately it appears he has either artificially lowered his handicap or is unable to perform any where near his handicap under the pressure of tournaments.

In either case, he won't be given much time to rectify the problem and prove he can shoot lower scores in tournaments before people either lose interest or consider the effort a failure.