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

[acerimusdux]

Take a look at the leader board, all these guys are scoring in the mid/high 60s up to the T26th place. This is only the Web.com qualifying school, I think only the top ones get the play the PGA tour Q-School and compete against the 125 to 176 place PGA tour players.

I wonder if Dan really thinks he can shave 20+ strokes per round off his current scores just to get on the web.com tour Q-school leader board?

You can no longer get on the PGA Tour directly through Q-school, you now pretty much have to play the Web.com tour.  There are a couple of exceptions to that, such as where you can get into some PGA events such as opens through qualifiers, and do well enough. But generally, Q-school gets you on web.com, and then you have to play well there to get the PGA card. I think all of those guys who made it to the final round get some kind of status for web.com, but you pretty much want to be in the top 45 names, which in that tournament meant an average round of 70 over 6 rounds.

So yeah, he's quite a way away from that, yet. I think he may only need to get his score down to around 80 (in those conditions) to have a shot at being a teaching pro, though.  In the end, that might end up being what he has to shoot for if he really wants a career in golf.

[flopster]

It pains me but I am going to have to eat my words from earlier in this thread.  I was a huge fan of "The Dan Plan" and I strongly believed that he was going to get at least a scratch handicap out of this ordeal, but now I am highly doubting this.  He is definitely vanity capping (by at least 7-10 strokes).

I will say that at the start of the plan, his methods were much better.  He had daily video logs, club fittings, and a credible coach.  You could actually see the progress and his handicap seemed to fit with his video swings and golf scores.  However, soon into the program he stopped with the video logs (I'm not sure if he lost the financial capability to do this or he lost interest) and since then I feel like the plan has taken a turn for the worst.  He keeps a periodic blog but it is the words of a defeated man, always trying to see the "bright side" and trying to justify failure.

I strongly believe that no matter how his golf game is at the end, his handicap will read 0.0.  He won't be playing to a 0.0 but I feel like Dan has become a bit of a compulsive liar and the vanity capping is his way of justifying this journey to himself as well as keeping the uninformed interested.

It's a shame that the plan is in this shape over half way through.  Most people who followed him from the beginning could see that he was making incredible strides.  His swing was not that bad.  There is still a long ways to go, but I can't really believe anything he posts anymore due to the blatant vanity capping.

I think most of us don't think Dan is blatantly vanity capping but there is definitely an issue with how he scores in tournaments versus casual rounds and I along with most feel he just doesn't handle the pressure of tournament golf well at all. He has to play either in as many tournaments as possible or in some other format that puts the same kind of pressure on his game so he learns how to handle it better. He needs to find at the very least some low stakes games to help him with the pressure because he just can't put it together if something is on the line, before he played that 3 day tournament he said he played that course the day before and shot 79 and even mentioned that the greens at RO were the fastest he has ever played. So he really can't say the greens were the reason he shot 87 and 88 twice.

[nevets88]

Based on what I've read on his blog and YouTube videos, if he can consistently break 80 in tournaments, there is no way I'd want to take lessons from the guy. No way.

While he's learned a lot, he's never purposely learned to teach. never been mentored for teaching and for a project that seems to based on proving out toying with an academic/scientific hypothesis, doesn't seem to demonstrate a passion or interest in the intricacies of instruction or at least is not documenting it anyway.

I don't think there would be any difference between him and the amateur 6 handicap who posted here he wants to teach professionally. And that a teacher has some kind of celebrity status does nothing for me. If he did turn pro to teach, there wouldn't be much differentiating him and the typical mediocre instructor.

And another thought came to me. The guy was a professional photographer, not one high frame rate video on his YouTube channel. Again, I hate to pile on, but this is his "job", I just expected more nuance, more I dunno, interesting stuff from someone who isn't time constrained by a full time job/family.

Are you gonna listen to him if he tells you to only putt for the first two months, starting with 1 footers?

[Abu3baid]

Are you gonna listen to him if he tells you to only putt for the first two months, starting with 1 footers?

Simply NO

[iacas]

Are you gonna listen to him if he tells you to only putt for the first two months, starting with 1 footers?

That's funny because it's basically a key example in the most important chapter in LSW .

[Big C]

Dan's last 5 full rounds, including his 3 day tournament blow-up: 88, 87, 88, 86, 80.

I get that the nature of golf improvement is "two steps forward, one step back," but he's probably the only 2-handicapper I've seen that can't break 80 for 5 consecutive rounds.

[Lihu]

Dan's last 5 full rounds, including his 3 day tournament blow-up: 88, 87, 88, 86, 80.

I get that the nature of golf improvement is "two steps forward, one step back," but he's probably the only 2-handicapper I've seen that can't break 80 for 5 consecutive rounds.

His average is 86 which puts him at about a 14 handicap, and with course differentials added in he might be a 12-13.

I'm still impressed that @Shorty could determine this much earlier on.

Well, maybe he'll shoot sub-76 for another 5 rounds in a row.

[flopster]

Are you gonna listen to him if he tells you to only putt for the first two months, starting with 1 footers?

LOL I would probably do it for about 2 or 3 minutes and realize this is ludicrous, I do see where your going though with the lack of what methods did what and how well and for how long in his site. He has his 10,000 hour countdown stopwatch but he only puts down vague info and nothing with any real benefit to anyone.

[Lihu]

LOL I would probably do it for about 2 or 3 minutes and realize this is ludicrous, I do see where your going though with the lack of what methods did what and how well and for how long in his site. He has his 10,000 hour countdown stopwatch but he only puts down vague info and nothing with any real benefit to anyone.

Did he really put in any significant effort putting from 1 foot?

[nevets88]

Did he really put in any significant effort putting from 1 foot?

OK, 1 foot, not correct, I was being dramatic, but it went from short to long. To me from boring to even more boring to kill myself boring.

"Week one was a success.  Along with the other stuff, I got to be out on the greens for about 13 hours"

http://thedanplan.com/one-week-down-207-to-go/

" CS had me first putt from about 18″ away, placing the balls in a circle around the hole."

http://thedanplan.com/lesson-one-completed/

"I putted better than I ever have before, actually broke the 90% barrier in my three foot game (where I putt 100 balls from six different areas around the hole, all three feet away)."

http://thedanplan.com/new_putter/

[Lihu]

OK, 1 foot, not correct, I was being dramatic, but it went from short to long. To me from boring to even more boring to kill myself boring.

"Week one was a success.  Along with the other stuff, I got to be out on the greens for about 13 hours"

http://thedanplan.com/one-week-down-207-to-go/

"CS had me first putt from about 18″ away, placing the balls in a circle around the hole."

http://thedanplan.com/lesson-one-completed/

"I putted better than I ever have before, actually broke the 90% barrier in my three foot game (where I putt 100 balls from six different areas around the hole, all three feet away)."

http://thedanplan.com/new_putter/

This. . .sounds. . .so. . .exciting.

[Pretzel]

This. . .sounds. . .so. . .exciting. :-X

It's like reading a thriller novel.

[Gunther]

No fun fer sure but how any hours you think Phil has put in putting from 3' and in? Hundreds? Not consecutive, of course but I sure could use a few hours doing it.

[flopster]

The way I see it is he should have spent no more than an hour a week from even 18" at the start, there were lots more important things to learn.

[nevets88]

No fun fer sure but how any hours you think Phil has put in putting from 3' and in? Hundreds? Not consecutive, of course but I sure could use a few hours doing it.

Yeah but he was practicing other things in addition, not exclusively.

[Lihu]

The way I see it is he should have spent no more than an hour a week from even 18" at the start, there were lots more important things to learn.

Clearly. . .

[MS256]

No fun fer sure but how any hours you think Phil has put in putting from 3' and in? Hundreds? Not consecutive, of course but I sure could use a few hours doing it.

Question is does all that practice on short putts really make him (or anybody else) that much better at short putts?

I don't know the answer to that but I think any overall score improvement would be minimal for anybody that's already a decent putter.

I can't remember any rounds where after the round I thought, man if I could have just made those 3 foot putts I would have had a great day. Can't say the same for ball striking.

From what I see poor distance control on longer lag putts costs way more strokes than missing 3 footers.

[iacas]

I don't know the answer to that but I think any overall score improvement would be minimal for anybody that's already a decent putter.

One-foot putts have next to zero SV. :)