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

[k14]

P.S. I don't know who Richard Chen is, but he doesn't appear to know very much about the golf swing. I only read the first two paragraphs of his novel in the comments, though.

I was thinking the same thing. He regularly posts comments and on more than one occasion they are longer than the blog post itself.

[nevets88]

Holy dear lord wall of China text. Anytime I see that many words, my reaction is Gandalf's "Run, you fools." This is the thing about being public. You're accosted on all sides with advice. How the hell do you choose, as a newbie? When you take up golf, having a knowledgeable mentor, makes such a difference.

[iacas]

Holy dear lord wall of China text. Anytime I see that many words, my reaction is Gandalf's "Run, you fools."

This is the thing about being public. You're accosted on all sides with advice. How the hell do you choose, as a newbie? When you take up golf, having a knowledgeable mentor, makes such a difference.

I do wish someone would tell him about Lowest Score Wins . I think it'd open his eyes to lots of things.

[pullfade]

The flat swing is maddening. I met Dan 3 years ago as he was always hanging around my local course in Portland. He took an interest in me as I'm a fairly accomplished player for the area. Played in the Pac-12, bounced around on the mini-tours for awhile until eventually regaining my amateur status and now I enjoy playing in usga, regional, and state amateur events.

In an ideal world he would have an accomplished instructor working with him daily but he doesn't have the resources and can't find an instructor willing to give him that amount of time for what Dan can afford to pay. I've filled in as an interim instructor for Dan at times. I worked with him about 6 months ago on trying to get him to have a less handsy takeaway, a full shoulder turn, a more upright plane, more natural axis tilt at impact, working on his early extension, etc.

The problem is he's just your typical stubborn student. He's learned to swing the club one way that has got him down to a 7-8 handicap mostly on his own. If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range. I can get him in better positions when I'm working with him which leads to more solid contact but the moment I leave it all goes back to these pathetic pictures of his swing being even more flat than before. I think a lot of that is caused by the fact that he feels like he has to play in tournaments and has to go out there with some sort of swing he's comfortable with that can put up a reasonable score. I understand that completely but with his aptitude for the game and his average (at best) athletic ability, it's my opinion that the only way his swing will improve is if he stops playing golf and beats balls on the range with supervision for the next 6 months.

[Ernest Jones]

The flat swing is maddening. I met Dan 3 years ago as he was always hanging around my local course in Portland. He took an interest in me as I'm a fairly accomplished player for the area. Played in the Pac-12, bounced around on the mini-tours for awhile until eventually regaining my amateur status and now I enjoy playing in usga, regional, and state amateur events.

In an ideal world he would have an accomplished instructor working with him daily but he doesn't have the resources and can't find an instructor willing to give him that amount of time for what Dan can afford to pay. I've filled in as an interim instructor for Dan at times. I worked with him about 6 months ago on trying to get him to have a less handsy takeaway, a full shoulder turn, a more upright plane, more natural axis tilt at impact, working on his early extension, etc.

The problem is he's just your typical stubborn student. He's learned to swing the club one way that has got him down to a 7-8 handicap mostly on his own. If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range. I can get him in better positions when I'm working with him which leads to more solid contact but the moment I leave it all goes back to these pathetic pictures of his swing being even more flat than before. I think a lot of that is caused by the fact that he feels like he has to play in tournaments and has to go out there with some sort of swing he's comfortable with that can put up a reasonable score. I understand that completely but with his aptitude for the game, his average at best athletic ability, it's my opinion that the only way his swing will improve is if he stops playing golf and beats balls on the range with supervision for the next 6 months.

Ugh. If any teacher told me I had to quite playing golf for 6 months to improve...well...let's just say I'd look for another coach. Maybe that's just me but I can't see why a player can't steadily improve without having to quit playing and rebuild from zero. In fact, I think it's notions like these that keep so many people from seeking any instruction at all.

[pullfade]

Ugh. If any teacher told me I had to quite playing golf for 6 months to improve...well...let's just say I'd look for another coach. Maybe that's just me but I can't see why a player can't steadily improve without having to quite playing and rebuild from zero. In fact, I think it's notions like these that keep so many people from seeking any instruction at all.

I think it's all dependent upon the player and what they are trying to accomplish. In Dan's rare case I think he would be best suited by not playing tournaments and to focus on his golf swing. He's been hitting the driver off the planet since he's put it in his bag, has gone through two top instructors in the area who haven't been able to get through to him, all because, in my belief he keeps teeing it up in tournaments and goes back to what he knows.

[Ernest Jones]

I think it's all dependent upon the player and what they are trying to accomplish. In Dan's rare case I think he would be best suited by not playing tournaments and to focus on his golf swing. He's been hitting the driver off the planet since he's put it in his bag, has gone through two top instructors in the area who haven't been able to get through to him, all because, in my belief he keeps teeing it up in tournaments and goes back to what he knows.

Ok. That's different. I thought you were saying he had to stop playing golf and only work on the range. Probably was mislead by this statement:

If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range.

I agree that perhaps the tournament golf is preventing him from committing to any serious change. I know when I'm working on changing the picture I can go through some growing pains, I think everybody does, but I'm just playing for my own enjoyment so it doesn't really matter if my scores go up for a few weeks while I'm getting used to a new motion.

[pullfade]

Ok. That's different. I thought you were saying he had to stop playing golf and only work on the range. Probably was mislead by this statement:

I agree that perhaps the tournament golf is preventing him from committing to any serious change. I know when I'm working on changing the picture I can go through some growing pains, I think everybody does, but I'm just playing for my own enjoyment so it doesn't really matter if my scores go up for a few weeks while I'm getting used to a new motion.

If he can play and not have any expectation on score and can concentrate 100% on the things he's working on in his swing during a round I have no problem with him playing casually but the things I've mentioned are extremely hard to do and I imagine it's even harder when you have thousands of people tracking your scores.

[Slice of Life]

Ugh. If any teacher told me I had to quite playing golf for 6 months to improve...well...let's just say I'd look for another coach. Maybe that's just me but I can't see why a player can't steadily improve without having to quit playing and rebuild from zero. In fact, I think it's notions like these that keep so many people from seeking any instruction at all.

One of the benefits of living in Cleveland...I pretty much have to take 6 months off anyway lol.

Main reason I signed up for Evolvr when I did...this way I can spend all winter just practicing and fine tuning my swing without actually golfing.

[RandallT]

The flat swing is maddening. I met Dan 3 years ago as he was always hanging around my local course in Portland. He took an interest in me as I'm a fairly accomplished player for the area. Played in the Pac-12, bounced around on the mini-tours for awhile until eventually regaining my amateur status and now I enjoy playing in usga, regional, and state amateur events.

In an ideal world he would have an accomplished instructor working with him daily but he doesn't have the resources and can't find an instructor willing to give him that amount of time for what Dan can afford to pay. I've filled in as an interim instructor for Dan at times. I worked with him about 6 months ago on trying to get him to have a less handsy takeaway, a full shoulder turn, a more upright plane, more natural axis tilt at impact, working on his early extension, etc.

The problem is he's just your typical stubborn student. He's learned to swing the club one way that has got him down to a 7-8 handicap mostly on his own. If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range. I can get him in better positions when I'm working with him which leads to more solid contact but the moment I leave it all goes back to these pathetic pictures of his swing being even more flat than before. I think a lot of that is caused by the fact that he feels like he has to play in tournaments and has to go out there with some sort of swing he's comfortable with that can put up a reasonable score. I understand that completely but with his aptitude for the game and his average (at best) athletic ability, it's my opinion that the only way his swing will improve is if he stops playing golf and beats balls on the range with supervision for the next 6 months.

Wow, thanks for insight from up close and personal. I'm intrigued that you know him and you filled in as his instructor for a bit. I laughed when you mentioned the handsy takeaway, because that jumped out at me for a while and I'm not an expert at all. I'm not sure his current swing is bad that way, but for a while, he definitely did a strange roll that I don't think I've ever seen any professionals do.  I've got a few questions for you, if you're inclined to answer:

1. Does he use much video in his practice? His last blog seemed to indicate that it was a new concept to him that the swing is difficult to change and that you must look at the actual results on video, rather than use your feel. It made me think he doesn't use video much to verify his positions.

2. Not sure if you've seen the "My Swing" threads here on The SandTrap, but from what you know of Dan, would he be the kind of guy who would post his swing here and let others comment freely? He is already exposed to the world, so what's the big deal with exposing himself a little more? There might be criticism here, but he seems like he can handle it.

3. Do you know if he ever considered a package of lessons using online video submissions, rather than just face-to-face instructors. There's one called "evolvr" that many here use (I did for a few months earlier, and hope to start up again in the off-season). If he's strapped for cash, I wonder if he's ever considered it. It's such a great value and the feedback is very specific and keeps you moving ahead on a key piece in a logical manner. He seems to be jumping all over the place, which must frustrate his instructor.

4. Did he ever tell you what it was he meant by "deliberate practice?" Do you think he had any new insights into practice techniques for golf, or do you think his practice techniques were fairly common?

[nevets88]

I do wish someone would tell him about Lowest Score Wins. I think it'd open his eyes to lots of things.

Commented on his FB page. Let's see if he bites.

The flat swing is maddening. I met Dan 3 years ago as he was always hanging around my local course in Portland. He took an interest in me as I'm a fairly accomplished player for the area. Played in the Pac-12, bounced around on the mini-tours for awhile until eventually regaining my amateur status and now I enjoy playing in usga, regional, and state amateur events.

In an ideal world he would have an accomplished instructor working with him daily but he doesn't have the resources and can't find an instructor willing to give him that amount of time for what Dan can afford to pay. I've filled in as an interim instructor for Dan at times. I worked with him about 6 months ago on trying to get him to have a less handsy takeaway, a full shoulder turn, a more upright plane, more natural axis tilt at impact, working on his early extension, etc.

The problem is he's just your typical stubborn student. He's learned to swing the club one way that has got him down to a 7-8 handicap mostly on his own. If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range. I can get him in better positions when I'm working with him which leads to more solid contact but the moment I leave it all goes back to these pathetic pictures of his swing being even more flat than before. I think a lot of that is caused by the fact that he feels like he has to play in tournaments and has to go out there with some sort of swing he's comfortable with that can put up a reasonable score. I understand that completely but with his aptitude for the game and his average (at best) athletic ability, it's my opinion that the only way his swing will improve is if he stops playing golf and beats balls on the range with supervision for the next 6 months.

This is basically what I did this year. Spent a lot of time on the range, got tunnel vision and didn't play that much. Made much use of the camera and did a boatload of online lessons, peppered instructors with questions.  When I did play on the course, I treated it like the range and put in play, even exaggerated, the pieces I was working on on the course, screw the score - I have that luxury, one The Dan Plan doesn't. Swing is very different than what it was. Learned a lot about movement, associating what really happens with feel, just basically geeked out.

I can't imagine what it's like to be doing that in the public eye. It has to be very distracting. I get distracted enough on the range when it gets busy. I kind of thought his swing is pretty much the same except with a shorter backswing, before it was too long. Even his 65 yard wedge swing looks too long.

[Lihu]

The problem is he's just your typical stubborn student. He's learned to swing the club one way that has got him down to a 7-8 handicap mostly on his own. If he's really serious about changing his swing and becoming an overall better ballstriker, and I've told him this, he needs to not play golf for 6 months or a year and commit to making the changes on the range. I can get him in better positions when I'm working with him which leads to more solid contact but the moment I leave it all goes back to these pathetic pictures of his swing being even more flat than before. I think a lot of that is caused by the fact that he feels like he has to play in tournaments and has to go out there with some sort of swing he's comfortable with that can put up a reasonable score. I understand that completely but with his aptitude for the game and his average (at best) athletic ability, it's my opinion that the only way his swing will improve is if he stops playing golf and beats balls on the range with supervision for the next 6 months.

Agree 100 %, if he wants to look stronger.

His swing looks kind of "wimpy" I think it's just because he does not have that much energy coming from the torso. I have a similar problem, and for my size, my swing also looks wimpy.

Taking 6 months out to work on his swing would probably give him the best results. I am surprised that he is a 7-8 handicap. Other players I know in the 8-10 handicap who are roughly his size have much stronger looking swings.

Nice to hear from someone who actually worked with him. He seems like a nice guy, but remember that he is claiming to become a better player than you in another 4000 hours. I kind of have my doubts.

[pullfade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallT

Wow, thanks for insight from up close and personal. I'm intrigued that you know him and you filled in as his instructor for a bit. I laughed when you mentioned the handsy takeaway, because that jumped out at me for a while and I'm not an expert at all. I'm not sure his current swing is bad that way, but for a while, he definitely did a strange roll that I don't think I've ever seen any professionals do.  I've got a few questions for you, if you're inclined to answer:

1. Does he use much video in his practice? His last blog seemed to indicate that it was a new concept to him that the swing is difficult to change and that you must look at the actual results on video, rather than use your feel. It made me think he doesn't use video much to verify his positions.

2. Not sure if you've seen the "My Swing" threads here on The SandTrap, but from what you know of Dan, would he be the kind of guy who would post his swing here and let others comment freely? He is already exposed to the world, so what's the big deal with exposing himself a little more? There might be criticism here, but he seems like he can handle it.

3. Do you know if he ever considered a package of lessons using online video submissions, rather than just face-to-face instructors. There's one called "evolvr" that many here use (I did for a few months earlier, and hope to start up again in the off-season). If he's strapped for cash, I wonder if he's ever considered it. It's such a great value and the feedback is very specific and keeps you moving ahead on a key piece in a logical manner. He seems to be jumping all over the place, which must frustrate his instructor.

4. Did he ever tell you what it was he meant by "deliberate practice?" Do you think he had any new insights into practice techniques for golf, or do you think his practice techniques were fairly common?

Let me just say I'm not an instructor, just a friend Dan reached out to because he knew of my experience and knowledge of the golf swing. I don't know the first thing about teaching a student, I know about the golf swing and the things I relayed to him during our time together he said was what the previous two instructors had him working on as well.

1. When I worked with him I encouraged him to use video everyday and installed some swing software on his laptop. It was the only way he was going to see if he was actually making changes in his swing. When someone is there he listens great, but when they're not he reverts back to old swing habits. I would guess he busts out the video camera every month or so and gets discouraged by what he sees and because of that he doesn't want to do it everyday. He has never fully committed to make swing changes, maybe he thinks he has but from what I've witnessed he hasn't. I've seen pros do nothing but 9/3 drills everyday for 3 months when trying to get a new feeling down, Dan just doesn't seem to realize the work involved in making even a minor change in his swing.

2. I don't know if Dan would do that or not. One thing I've encouraged Dan to do over the years is to get one swing coach and stick with him. The problem is he doesn't have the money to make this happen so he ends up with too many cooks in the kitchen, and I include myself in that. Keep it simple stupid is what he needs to do instead he gives himself analysis paralysis by taking in information from everywhere. Although, to be fair, I can't see where in his swing he uses the information he gets because his swing looks the same as it did a year ago.

3. I don't know if he's ever considered anything like this. He seems to focus more on strength, physical conditioning, and the mental side of the game than actually putting in the effort to make his swing better.

4. I know when we would play rounds of golf he would only count about 1.5 hours towards the stopwatch on his site. I've never heard any new insights from him. He knew nothing about the game going into the project so everything he's been doing he's either been told to do or observed and then does it. I've stressed variable practice him a lot, which is something I'm sure he still does.

I think it's quite obvious to everyone on here that he just doesn't have a feel for the game. If you've grown up around golf and have seen great players throughout your youth, junior, college, or even pro careers I think it's safe to say that 98% of the scratch golfers you've encountered got to be scratch within 2-4 years of picking up a club.

[Lihu]

I think it's quite obvious to everyone on here that he just doesn't have a feel for the game. If you've grown up around golf and have seen great players throughout your youth, junior, college, or even pro careers I think it's safe to say that 98% of the scratch golfers you've encountered got to be scratch within 2-4 years of picking up a club.

I think it's a little thing called "talent" that seems to have been overlooked by this plan.

[pullfade]

Agree 100 %, if he wants to look stronger.

His swing looks kind of "wimpy" I think it's just because he does not have that much energy coming from the torso. I have a similar problem, and for my size, my swing also looks wimpy.

Taking 6 months out to work on his swing would probably give him the best results. I am surprised that he is a 7-8 handicap. Other players I know in the 8-10 handicap who are roughly his size have much stronger looking swings.

Nice to hear from someone who actually worked with him. He seems like a nice guy, but remember that he is claiming to become a better player than you in another 4000 hours. I kind of have my doubts.

His swing is all arms, very minimal shoulder turn. He could hit the ball much farther with less effort and better technique. I know there has been a lot of talk on here about what his real handicap is. I've probably played with him 20 or so times and I would put him right at about a 7. I actually think he was playing a lot better 1-1.5 years ago then he is now, so maybe he is a bit higher to date. For his handicap he is a below average ballstriker with an above average short game so your assessment in his swing is correct, he's just able to save more strokes around the greens than I think your typical 7-8 handicapper.

[nevets88]

One advantage of doing the six months thing is it slows down the rate of number of hours ticked off. There's only so many hours during a day you can really deep dive on your swing before you tax your brain out. Although I've been doing it in the much hotter, more humid NE climate and Oregon is temperate for the most part, after an intense 2-3 hours you zone out. Or your battery screams bloody murder from the heat, ha ha :-) You need not only a physical but mental break. Then maybe one more session. That's what, 5 hours a day. Take a break one day a week because it helps the body and mind consolidate those changes. You can spend 1-2 hours a day just looking at video, doing mirror work, don't count the video watching but count mirror work. 5.5 * 6 = 33. That's 858 hours. Key is the instructor like I said. Get one who really knows what he or she is doing and you can get a sh&$)load done. I'd argue with the right pro, even doing this exclusively online would come close to in person lesson results. Another thing is to get better you're gonna make some... errrr .... many P.O.S. swings. They may look good on camera but they're a shank or something awful like that. Since he's in the public eye maybe that's something he's afraid to do let alone post those.

[garybbq]

I don't understand how Dan can't afford instruction, I mean I would think 1 hour a week would be enough until he gets his index down low. So what does an average 1 hour session run? $100? So he can't afford $400 a month?

[Gary L]

This guy is still going?  Heard about it when he first started but didn't follow it.  Can someone sommerize it or direct me to a recent post that does?  I can't read 94 pages, I just can't.