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

[nevets88]

[QUOTE name="flopster" url="/t/45853/the-dan-plan-10-000-hours-to-become-a-pro-golfer-dan-mclaughlin/2268#post_1086716"]   Also looks like you lost weight? This can of course help in so many ways, flexibility, coordination , strength. [/QUOTE] Yes, nearly 32kg over the last 12 months. But this is the thing that frustrates me about Dan. Video footage is probably one of the easiest things to do these days but its few and far between AND I really want to see what kind of progress he is making through his experiment. Regards Mailman

I agree with you especially w/respect to showing and demonstrating what deliberate practice for him since that's one of the main points of his plan. His practice looks typical, nothing groundbreaking, probably "less" deliberate than videos found in this site. But the thing is his swing really hasn't changed much. And his videos, the angles are inconsistent. So, makes comparing a little harder. And a severe limitation of his plan is money, lack of which doesn't allow him nearly enough quality instruction.

[RandallT]

I agree with you especially w/respect to showing and demonstrating what deliberate practice for him since that's one of the main points of his plan. His practice looks typical, nothing groundbreaking, probably "less" deliberate than videos found in this site.

But the thing is his swing really hasn't changed much. And his videos, the angles are inconsistent. So, makes comparing a little harder.

And a severe limitation of his plan is money, lack of which doesn't allow him nearly enough quality instruction.

In hindsight, it sure is hard to miss a few things with The Dan Plan:

1. Despite lots of good talk, he never broke much ground regarding Deliberate Practice. I was hoping for a writeup of each session in his blog, rather than some of the more unstructured topics in his blog. He would have been better served just using his blog narrative to document what he did that day, and what his results were. And occasionally map it back to a larger plan or even a short term objective. As we reviewed now, we could see the key things he worked on over time... now it's mostly a mess of random thoughts.

2. Other than using a handicap, he didn't use consistent measures for his progress. There were a few times he promised to keep track of certain stats that were better than FIR/GIR/Putts per round/etc. After a nice writeup about his epiphany, no follow through.  Similar with the TrackMan combines. It seemed he would periodically measure where his swing was with technology. As time went by, there was no further mention of it and then of course the technology was taken from him. The statistics page is way out of date (http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/).

3. The videos started out full of optimism. Production values were high. As time went by, he became less and less enthused with showing his progress by video, presumably because of lack of results. The funding for quality videos dried up, and soon it became mostly selfies at the range. Here's one from over 2 years ago- he obviously had a cameraman then. He's since dropped the theme song and title segment, as well as other frills from his videos.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that The Dan Plan has all but fizzled out. I even used the past tense above sorta subconsciously. A bit sad, but pass the popcorn.

@nevets88 - is his swing still mostly the same now as in this early 2012 video? I'm not much for identifying key swing differences, but it looks better now. Surely a little bit, right?  But I get your point, and I'd even guess my swing has changed more than his in this same period of time. I can look at my archive of videos and instantly see the huge change in posture and hip turn. And I didn't even have a "PLAN"! I could probably cobble together notes from my practice sessions and videos and lay out a better discussion of deliberate practice than he has thus far. Thank goodness I'm too lazy to do that, or I'd have gotten myself into the same mess Dan has gotten himself into.

[Pretzel]

I posted the following in his blog a couple weeks ago:

Quote:

I was wondering what you and your instructor are working on currently in your swing. Are there any plans to show videos of the pieces you are fine tuning?

He hasn't responded to it, which I would take to mean that he isn't currently working on anything with any instructor. Kind of disappointing, especially when Evolvr would be a very budget-conscious way for him to improve his swing.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pretzel

I posted the following in his blog a couple weeks ago:

Quote:

I was wondering what you and your instructor are working on currently in your swing. Are there any plans to show videos of the pieces you are fine tuning?

He hasn't responded to it, which I would take to mean that he isn't currently working on anything with any instructor. Kind of disappointing, especially when Evolvr would be a very budget-conscious way for him to improve his swing.

Did you suggest Evolvr to him?

[Pretzel]

Did you suggest Evolvr to him?

Not yet, was looking too see if he was working on anything first.

[iacas]

Did you suggest Evolvr to him?

We'd accept him, but guys, seriously, we don't need anyone pimping for evolvr.

Though we have had Tour players going through evolvr, it's more about affordable, great instruction for people who can work at their own pace.

[nevets88]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nevets88

I agree with you especially w/respect to showing and demonstrating what deliberate practice for him since that's one of the main points of his plan. His practice looks typical, nothing groundbreaking, probably "less" deliberate than videos found in this site.

But the thing is his swing really hasn't changed much. And his videos, the angles are inconsistent. So, makes comparing a little harder.

And a severe limitation of his plan is money, lack of which doesn't allow him nearly enough quality instruction.

@nevets88- is his swing still mostly the same now as in this early 2012 video? I'm not much for identifying key swing differences, but it looks better now. Surely a little bit, right?  But I get your point, and I'd even guess my swing has changed more than his in this same period of time. I can look at my archive of videos and instantly see the huge change in posture and hip turn. And I didn't even have a "PLAN"! I could probably cobble together notes from my practice sessions and videos and lay out a better discussion of deliberate practice than he has thus far. Thank goodness I'm too lazy to do that, or I'd have gotten myself into the same mess Dan has gotten himself into.

@RandallT , there are subtle, minor differences but I'll repeat what I think @iacas said (if someone else did, then due credit to him, my memory is fuzzy), he doesn't turn. 2012 or now. It's like he wants to get the hip turn back done and over with ASAP.

[Pretzel]

@RandallT, there are subtle, minor differences but I'll repeat what I think @iacas said (if someone else did, then due credit to him, my memory is fuzzy), he doesn't turn. 2012 or now. It's like he wants to get the hip turn back done and over with ASAP.

Holy cow, his hips start creeping back forwards in the turn once his arm hits parallel in the backswing. That almost looks painful to do.

[nevets88]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nevets88

@RandallT, there are subtle, minor differences but I'll repeat what I think @iacas said (if someone else did, then due credit to him, my memory is fuzzy), he doesn't turn. 2012 or now. It's like he wants to get the hip turn back done and over with ASAP.

Holy cow, his hips start creeping back forwards in the turn once his arm hits parallel in the backswing. That almost looks painful to do.

If you bring up his swing and put it side by side with most pros, it'll be obvious the differential in hip turn. Maybe he's doing X factor or something.

[RandallT]

[QUOTE name="Pretzel" url="/t/45853/the-dan-plan-10-000-hours-to-become-a-pro-golfer-dan-mclaughlin/2280_40#post_1087404"]   [QUOTE name="nevets88" url="/t/45853/the-dan-plan-10-000-hours-to-become-a-pro-golfer-dan-mclaughlin/2286#post_1087375"] @RandallT , there are subtle, minor differences but I'll repeat what I think @iacas said (if someone else did, then due credit to him, my memory is fuzzy), he doesn't turn. 2012 or now. It's like he wants to get the hip turn back done and over with ASAP. [/QUOTE] Holy cow, his hips start creeping back forwards in the turn once his arm hits parallel in the backswing. That almost looks painful to do. [/QUOTE] If you bring up his swing and put it side by side with most pros, it'll be obvious the differential in hip turn. Maybe he's doing X factor or something.

I see what you guys are talking about. Incredible. He starts to straighten his back leg on the backswing (so far so good) but even before his arm is parallel to the ground his back leg is bending as though he is firing his hips. That seems like a big problem that would take a while to unlearn. I know he was very handsy in his takeaway for a long long time , and he had trouble unlearning that flaw. I'm not even sure he's gotten that fixed completely but it was noted by everyone. That would've been a great topic for deliberate practice: how to remove a specific flaw. What drills did he do? Did he use video? How often did he check his full swing video to see if his drills were paying off? He seemed to just wish it away by using swing thoughts- not use practice techniques. He was constantly surprised how hard it was to stop doing it. Has he even stopped? I think I still see his takeaway as awkward. Maybe it's not his priority piece tho? :)

[Lihu]

I see what you guys are talking about. Incredible. He starts to straighten his back leg on the backswing (so far so good) but even before his arm is parallel to the ground his back leg is bending as though he is firing his hips.

That seems like a big problem that would take a while to unlearn.

Why do you think this particular thing is harder to unlearn than, say, other swing flaws he might have?

[RFKFREAK]

In hindsight, it sure is hard to miss a few things with The Dan Plan:

1. Despite lots of good talk, he never broke much ground regarding Deliberate Practice. I was hoping for a writeup of each session in his blog, rather than some of the more unstructured topics in his blog. He would have been better served just using his blog narrative to document what he did that day, and what his results were. And occasionally map it back to a larger plan or even a short term objective. As we reviewed now, we could see the key things he worked on over time... now it's mostly a mess of random thoughts.

2. Other than using a handicap, he didn't use consistent measures for his progress. There were a few times he promised to keep track of certain stats that were better than FIR/GIR/Putts per round/etc. After a nice writeup about his epiphany, no follow through.  Similar with the TrackMan combines. It seemed he would periodically measure where his swing was with technology. As time went by, there was no further mention of it and then of course the technology was taken from him. The statistics page is way out of date (http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/).

3. The videos started out full of optimism. Production values were high. As time went by, he became less and less enthused with showing his progress by video, presumably because of lack of results. The funding for quality videos dried up, and soon it became mostly selfies at the range. Here's one from over 2 years ago- he obviously had a cameraman then. He's since dropped the theme song and title segment, as well as other frills from his videos.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that The Dan Plan has all but fizzled out. I even used the past tense above sorta subconsciously. A bit sad, but pass the popcorn.

@nevets88- is his swing still mostly the same now as in this early 2012 video? I'm not much for identifying key swing differences, but it looks better now. Surely a little bit, right?  But I get your point, and I'd even guess my swing has changed more than his in this same period of time. I can look at my archive of videos and instantly see the huge change in posture and hip turn. And I didn't even have a "PLAN"! I could probably cobble together notes from my practice sessions and videos and lay out a better discussion of deliberate practice than he has thus far. Thank goodness I'm too lazy to do that, or I'd have gotten myself into the same mess Dan has gotten himself into.

When I watched that video I didn't realize that video was from 2 years ago.  I started thinking to myself how irresponsible it would be to spend money on such a production if he were really hard up on cash and that he had to have to someone donate their production skills to help him make that video.

[RandallT]

[QUOTE name="RandallT" url="/t/45853/the-dan-plan-10-000-hours-to-become-a-pro-golfer-dan-mclaughlin/2286#post_1087464"] I see what you guys are talking about. Incredible. He starts to straighten his back leg on the backswing (so far so good) but even before his arm is parallel to the ground his back leg is bending as though he is firing his hips. That seems like a big problem that would take a while to unlearn. [/QUOTE] Why do you think this particular thing is harder to unlearn than, say, other swing flaws he might have?

From my experience, changing your body's natural tempo or rhythm is tough. He needs to fix a sequencing issue where he coordinate all parts of his body. That just seems tougher to me than something like addressing your posture or even calming your hands in a takeaway. Those are relatively static or targeted fixes. I could be wrong!

[flopster]

Holy cow, his hips start creeping back forwards in the turn once his arm hits parallel in the backswing. That almost looks painful to do.

That's definite manipulation going on there, he's still got a very closed face on the takeaway, also his weight is way out on his toes and it looks like all these moves are only there to keep him from falling forward. He will never be able to hit a driver for any consistency until he learns how to swing the club with more body, right now he's doing everything with his hands and arms.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pretzel

Holy cow, his hips start creeping back forwards in the turn once his arm hits parallel in the backswing. That almost looks painful to do.

That's definite manipulation going on there, he's still got a very closed face on the takeaway, also his weight is way out on his toes and it looks like all these moves are only there to keep him from falling forward. He will never be able to hit a driver for any consistency until he learns how to swing the club with more body, right now he's doing everything with his hands and arms.

It does not look like he can hit his driver 270 yards as measured on the Trackman Combine tests, but apparently he does it somehow?

[nevets88]

I don't have the patience to read through his blog to see how he developed his full swing. I couldn't tell much from his YouTube channel. It's like all of a sudden it was there.

[flopster]

It does not look like he can hit his driver 270 yards as measured on the Trackman Combine tests, but apparently he does it somehow?

Dan can produce club head speed but he doesn't deliver it on a very consistent plane or face angle it seems, on the rare occasions everything comes together and he can hit some good drives but his misses are way worse than first cut it sounds like.

[Pourputt]

Where is Dan?! Over 3 weeks with no updates...