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

[Dave2512]

While it may seem there are an abundance of mid single digit handicap golfers here in real life my experience there are few. But yeah his problem is the initial goal. It was so far fetched he had an army of doubters from day one.

[RandallT]

Yes, my daughter and I teamed up to add all Dan's data to the spreadsheet. Just thought it'd be very interesting, and his site is lacking on the big picture view of his progress. The info is there, but hard to get to.

Dan's first round was in August 2011. He started out better than a bogey-golfer. I didn't realize that. Guess all that short game work paid off.

The trend lines are not looking promising, however.

[Lihu]

[URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/111995/] [/URL] Yes, my daughter and I teamed up to add all Dan's data to the spreadsheet. Just thought it'd be very interesting, and his site is lacking on the big picture view of his progress. The info is there, but hard to get to. Dan's first round was in August 2011. He started out better than a bogey-golfer. I didn't realize that. Guess all that short game work paid off.  The trend lines are not looking promising, however.

Nice job with the graph! I think it shows what we have all been feeling. He seems to have reached a steady state at roughly an 6-8 handicap.

[golfbarefoot]

The one true element I think is missing, is the 10k hours..should be playing, like in constant tournaments with scratch players. The graph shows that no matter how many hours you tinker with equipment and hit balls and play by yourself, you plateau a bit. You somewhat play to the level of your competition. Always playing with scratch players will make you so much better long term, playing with hacks (or alone) will not improve you. At some point you have to just play and score in tournaments. Experience in watching them, their thought process, demeanor, club selection, conversation and resilience is priceless. Not robotic practice and over analysis day after day. He seems to be stuck in a constant tinker mode. His last video he's blatantly saying he just cannot hit a driver and needs to start over with a new fitting and just got new 3degree flat irons he's trying too.....in worried that even though he's doing good from where he started... Trying to compete from the tips? Add at least 8 more strokes. The ironic thing is this is called the Dan "plan" and personally I think it's the plan part that is failing him, not lack of effort. He didn't spend enough time thinking through the plan in my opinion. He also looks to be losing a little interest over the last year and half. I still say kudos for trying this but it's difficult to see him competing in the final 6 day tournament at Q-school. To summarize, I think the 10k hour theory would be better proved to an average younger golfer and the majority of the 10k hours is spent competing and learning from pros progressively in refinement. Not learning from scratch.

[RandallT]

The one true element I think is missing, is the 10k hours..should be playing, like in constant tournaments with scratch players. The graph shows that no matter how many hours you tinker with equipment and hit balls and play by yourself, you plateau a bit. You somewhat play to the level of your competition. Always playing with scratch players will make you so much better long term, playing with hacks (or alone) will not improve you. At some point you have to just play and score in tournaments. Experience in watching them, their thought process, demeanor, club selection, conversation and resilience is priceless. Not robotic practice and over analysis day after day. He seems to be stuck in a constant tinker mode. His last video he's blatantly saying he just cannot hit a driver and needs to start over with a new fitting and just got new 3degree flat irons he's trying too.....in worried that even though he's doing good from where he started... Trying to compete from the tips? Add at least 8 more strokes. The ironic thing is this is called the Dan "plan" and personally I think it's the plan part that is failing him, not lack of effort. He didn't spend enough time thinking through the plan in my opinion. He also looks to be losing a little interest over the last year and half. I still say kudos for trying this but it's difficult to see him competing in the final 6 day tournament at Q-school. To summarize, I think the 10k hour theory would be better proved to an average younger golfer and the majority of the 10k hours is spent competing and learning from pros progressively in refinement. Not learning from scratch.

Agree with this. Regarding tournament play, your post made me realize that the periodic peaks in his scores are from his tournaments. I'll have to confirm this by comparing the spreadsheet with his narrative, but typically he scores well by himself but then has a two- or three-day tournament of mid or high 80s each round. That can really do damage to a 10-day moving average. He provably needed two separate goals: one for casual play where he was playing his familiar home courses with familiar partners; and one for real competition rounds. Those are two very different beasts. The only one of those two goals that mattered was the competition goal. He should've had goals for which tourneys he wanted to play in, and strived toward increasing their frequency until his only measurement was competition rounds. But to get there, you need to be down at a low handicap to qualify for tourneys, and he's likely not low enough yet.

[DrvFrShow]

One of the women at my golf club told me on my second outing with them when I scored a 112, and she saw that I was hitting the ball as far as their good players: you need to play with the better players in the club. Mo had a fantastic short game, and I really enjoy playing with her and I learned a lot about the short game from her. But I had my best rounds with them when I played with the 8 HC players, because I'd follow them down the fairways and try to play the same shot. It wouldn't always work out, and I'd mess up my shots, but I was learning how to play the game.

One thing that I'm wondering is if Dan is playing and reporting "whites" for his casual rounds while he's working on things, and this gets his HC down, then when he plays in a tournament he plays "blues." He'll play a round on the blues to warm up, and it shows. When he plays the blues he doesn't have the distance to match his competition. Then he has his confidence broken, and he struggles for a while and has to get it back. This is what is making it not fun for him right now. He's overreached.

If he set a more reasonable goal like a 5 handicap in five years, that would be another story.... but that wouldn't get the sponsors or publicity or allow him to "live the dream."

I know one guy at the driving range who sees me hit my distance and says "you should turn pro." I give him a sideways glance. I'm old #1, and #2, I don't have the distance to play a 6400 yd course - you need to drive 250+ yds to play competitively in the LPGA, plus be good everywhere else. A person must know their limitations. People try to fill you with a bunch of BS about "you only limit yourself," but failure to recognize your own limitations only leads to broken dreams.

This is going to be a make or break year for Dan. If he doesn't hit scratch this year he should just decide to have fun with the game and be a good amateur player, because at this point that's what he is. Unless he wants to become a PGA teaching pro, then he has to meet other requirements.

[Lihu]

One of the women at my golf club told me on my second outing with them when I scored a 112, and she saw that I was hitting the ball as far as their good players: you need to play with the better players in the club. Mo had a fantastic short game, and I really enjoy playing with her and I learned a lot about the short game from her. But I had my best rounds with them when I played with the 8 HC players, because I'd follow them down the fairways and try to play the same shot. It wouldn't always work out, and I'd mess up my shots, but I was learning how to play the game.

One thing that I'm wondering is if Dan is playing and reporting "whites" for his casual rounds while he's working on things, and this gets his HC down, then when he plays in a tournament he plays "blues." He'll play a round on the blues to warm up, and it shows. When he plays the blues he doesn't have the distance to match his competition. Then he has his confidence broken, and he struggles for a while and has to get it back. This is what is making it not fun for him right now. He's overreached.

If he set a more reasonable goal like a 5 handicap in five years, that would be another story.... but that wouldn't get the sponsors or publicity or allow him to "live the dream."

I know one guy at the driving range who sees me hit my distance and says "you should turn pro." I give him a sideways glance. I'm old #1, and #2, I don't have the distance to play a 6400 yd course - you need to drive 250+ yds to play competitively in the LPGA, plus be good everywhere else. A person must know their limitations. People try to fill you with a bunch of BS about "you only limit yourself," but failure to recognize your own limitations only leads to broken dreams.

This is going to be a make or break year for Dan. If he doesn't hit scratch this year he should just decide to have fun with the game and be a good amateur player, because at this point that's what he is. Unless he wants to become a PGA teaching pro, then he has to meet other requirements.

I think it is harder to play from shorter tees and lower your handicap. In fact, one way for longer hitters to improve their handicaps is to play longer courses.

We have this killer short course where every green is a challenge to get on, and the longer course has these relatively straightforward approaches on them. It would be a real challenge to lower your handicap playing this shorter course.

EDIT: The fact that the shorter course is harder around the greens penalizes you even more than the fact that the CR is also much lower.

[Pretzel]

I think it is harder to play from shorter tees and lower your handicap. In fact, one way for longer hitters to improve their handicaps is to play longer courses. We have this killer short course where every green is a challenge to get on, and the longer course has these relatively straightforward approaches on them. It would be a real challenge to lower your handicap playing this shorter course.

I agree with this, but for a different reason. Courses are rated for handicapping purposes, which means that the distance is accounted for in the course rating/slope. This means you should shoot similar differentials regardless of the length, unless you're REALLY struggling and can no longer physically reach the green in regulation anymore.

[ztexz]

I really admire this guy's perseverance, but I think it's pretty clear that he won't be able to make it out of the initial stages of Q-School, much less to the final days and on to the Web.com tour.  Heck, at this point he'd be hard-pressed to win a club championship, especially given what seem to be his blow-ups during competitive rounds.  For example, in August he placed 45th by going 87-80, finishing 24 shots off the winner.  In June, he played in a 3-day tournament and he went 88-87-88.  In April, he shot 90 in a freaking charity tournament.

Taking his word for it on his handicap (and, quite honestly, I'm skeptical -- legitimate 4-handicappers don't consistently shoot in the upper 80s), he's still light years away from even being in the realm of contention for Q-School: he'd have to shave 20+ strokes off of his typical tournament scores.

[golfbarefoot]

The pros I personally know destroy golf courses in regular rounds and shoot stupid numbers constantly and barely stay in the mini tours even scoring red numbers.. it's brutal. I just recently paid attention to this Dan's endeavor. I really think it would cool to see him succeed, but the way he's constantly tinkering with gadgets and equipment and the way he talks and seems to scoring like an average guy walking around the club. Touring pros are a completely different breed. Read his words from the other day: "January 10: Played in the Saturday men’s day at Riverside and hit it like crud, at least my long shots and stuff around the green, I’ve lost a lot of feel around the green with my new wedges and I’m not sure if that change to an x-flex shaft was the best call. I’ll give them a bit more time. 4,242 remain. Random Stat: shot an 87, really really bad round." I honestly think it's sinking in for the guy that this is simply a fun experiment, just enjoy the next year or so and move on. I still admire him a lot for putting himself out there like this, and it would be awesome to prove himself and pull it off. What is his driving distance, just curious?

[iacas]

Quote:

Published on 13 Jan 2015 http://www.expertinayear.com - The Expert in a Year Challenge follows the progress of novice table tennis player Sam Priestley, as he attempts to go from beginner to expert in just one year and break into the top 250 players in England.

The challenge is now finished and The guys decided to go back through all of the old footage of Sam's table tennis exploits and make a 1 Second Everyday video of the entire challenge. It's called '1 Second (Almost) Everyday' because they didn't play every single day of 2014 and also sometimes they would forget or not be able to film.

The video shows Sam's transformation over the year from complete novice to competent player. He may not quite be an 'expert', or have a top 250 ranking, but he's come such a long way during the past 12 months!

It's interesting, contrasting this versus golf…

[nevets88]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

Quote:

Published on 13 Jan 2015 http://www.expertinayear.com - The Expert in a Year Challenge follows the progress of novice table tennis player Sam Priestley, as he attempts to go from beginner to expert in just one year and break into the top 250 players in England.

The challenge is now finished and The guys decided to go back through all of the old footage of Sam's table tennis exploits and make a 1 Second Everyday video of the entire challenge. It's called '1 Second (Almost) Everyday' because they didn't play every single day of 2014 and also sometimes they would forget or not be able to film.

The video shows Sam's transformation over the year from complete novice to competent player. He may not quite be an 'expert', or have a top 250 ranking, but he's come such a long way during the past 12 months!

It's interesting, contrasting this versus golf…

Granted, video coverage of golf is more difficult and TT is easier, but I like seeing the day to day videos of Priestley's progression. I didn't feel like I got to see much progression in The Dan Plan, video wise.

[ztexz]

I mean, the fundamental flaw in Dan's Plan is that 10,000 is significantly less than what the touring pros are already doing.

Consider: the average, grinding professional on the PGA Tour plays probably 23 events in a season, and let's assume he makes 15 of those cuts.  This is roughly how much time he puts in each season:

15 Made Cuts x 6 rounds during the week (including pro-am + practice rounds) x 8-hours / day (playing time plus practice before / after round) = 720 hours

+

8 Missed Cuts x 4 rounds x 8-hours/day = 256 hours

+

26 weeks of practice x 5 days/week on average x 6 hours/day (kind of a guess, but I'm guessing 1.5 hours in the gym, plus 4.5 hours on the green/driving range) = 780 hours

+

3 weeks of vacation = 0 hours

So I'm estimating that most PGA Tour players spend about 1756 hours / year  (which makes sense if you consider that 2000 hours is a full-time job, and I haven't accounted for travel, press time, etc.)

So if you're a 30 year-old Tour player, you've probably been doing this schedule for about 8 years.  That right there is 14,000 hours...and we haven't included all of the time as juniors or collegiate players.  My guess is that the average Touring professional has probably poured closer to 30,000 hours in over the course of their lifetimes.

[ztexz]

What is his driving distance, just curious?

The most recent driver data  I saw was from January 2013, and he was averaging 255 yards.  He would have ranked dead-last on the PGA Tour last year, 15 yards behind Justin Leonard.

[Lihu]

I mean, the fundamental flaw in Dan's Plan is that 10,000 is significantly less than what the touring pros are already doing.

Consider: the average, grinding professional on the PGA Tour plays probably 23 events in a season, and let's assume he makes 15 of those cuts.  This is roughly how much time he puts in each season:

15 Made Cuts x 6 rounds during the week (including pro-am + practice rounds) x 8-hours / day (playing time plus practice before / after round) = 720 hours

+

8 Missed Cuts x 4 rounds x 8-hours/day = 256 hours

+

26 weeks of practice x 5 days/week on average x 6 hours/day (kind of a guess, but I'm guessing 1.5 hours in the gym, plus 4.5 hours on the green/driving range) = 780 hours

+

3 weeks of vacation = 0 hours

So I'm estimating that most PGA Tour players spend about 1756 hours / year  (which makes sense if you consider that 2000 hours is a full-time job, and I haven't accounted for travel, press time, etc.)

So if you're a 30 year-old Tour player, you've probably been doing this schedule for about 8 years.  That right there is 14,000 hours...and we haven't included all of the time as juniors or collegiate players.  My guess is that the average Touring professional has probably poured closer to 30,000 hours in over the course of their lifetimes.

I tried to state this a year ago, and I agree. The numbers are pretty astronomical. Golf is such a time sink.

[Golfingdad]

I mean, the fundamental flaw in Dan's Plan is that 10,000 is significantly less than what the touring pros are already doing.

Consider: the average, grinding professional on the PGA Tour plays probably 23 events in a season, and let's assume he makes 15 of those cuts.  This is roughly how much time he puts in each season:

15 Made Cuts x 6 rounds during the week (including pro-am + practice rounds) x 8-hours / day (playing time plus practice before / after round) = 720 hours

+

8 Missed Cuts x 4 rounds x 8-hours/day = 256 hours

+

26 weeks of practice x 5 days/week on average x 6 hours/day (kind of a guess, but I'm guessing 1.5 hours in the gym, plus 4.5 hours on the green/driving range) = 780 hours

+

3 weeks of vacation = 0 hours

So I'm estimating that most PGA Tour players spend about 1756 hours / year  (which makes sense if you consider that 2000 hours is a full-time job, and I haven't accounted for travel, press time, etc.)

So if you're a 30 year-old Tour player, you've probably been doing this schedule for about 8 years.  That right there is 14,000 hours...and we haven't included all of the time as juniors or collegiate players.  My guess is that the average Touring professional has probably poured closer to 30,000 hours in over the course of their lifetimes.

The last 8 years of your example touring professionals life all came AFTER he achieved expert status.  Those aren't relevant to the theory.  It's the 2-3 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, 51-52 weeks a year that he put in for the 10 or 11 years prior to that which made him an expert in his field.  If Dan were to earn his way onto the tour and play one single event and come in dead last, he will have succeeded.

So that isn't a flaw in Dan's Plan.  Further, even if it was a flaw, it's a flaw in the theory, not the plan.  But its a theory, so by definition, it can't really have a flaw.

Dan's flaw is really, really simple (if you're assuming that the theory is accurate):  He has wasted so many of his hours to this point because he has not been "practicing properly" that he's actually never going to reach 10,000.

[golf-noob-bruce]

It's interesting, contrasting this versus golf…

Wow!

Loved this. I really do admire people that are truly good at something. Sure, pros have a lot of natural talent, but honing those innate skills takes a lot of dedicated and concerted effort (true of golf, table tennis, whatever....).

[Pretzel]

What is his driving distance, just curious?

Currently? Too short for him to feel comfortable posting it, apparently, if you go by the omission in the recently posted table.