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

[bkuehn1952]

Clearly Dan has not renewed his GHIN account or has not signed up with a club that provides handicapping services.   I get an updated handicap index every 15 days even though our active season does not start until 4/1/2016.  If I had not paid my club membership a couple months ago, I would also have disappeared from the system until such time as I signed on somewhere.

Dan is going to resurface.  He will apologize for not keeping interested people up to date. He will mention that he considered writing updates but for various reasons was not able to do so.

I am doubtful that the condition that resulted in his back pain is totally resolved.  He is going to plunge on, regardless.  He has invested so much time into this "plan" that I don't see him abandoning it unless he truly can not swing a golf club.  Maybe he will prove me wrong.

[Lihu]

30 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I am doubtful that the condition that resulted in his back pain is totally resolved.  He is going to plunge on, regardless.  He has invested so much time into this "plan" that I don't see him abandoning it unless he truly can not swing a golf club.  Maybe he will prove me wrong.

I agree with this statement, but I still have no idea how he hurt his back?

[bkuehn1952]

41 minutes ago, Lihu said:

... I still have no idea how he hurt his back?

I am not sure Dan knows and possibly is not entirely sure of what the problem is.  I respect the idea that he doesn't need to share personal health issues with the world.  What little he has said never made me believe he actually had a medical diagnosis based on a thorough medical exam.

[newtogolf]

1 hour ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I am not sure Dan knows and possibly is not entirely sure of what the problem is.  I respect the idea that he doesn't need to share personal health issues with the world.  What little he has said never made me believe he actually had a medical diagnosis based on a thorough medical exam.

Dan does have the right to disclose as much or as little as he knows about his injury but when you're asking people for donations and sponsorship it's usually not a good idea to disappear for extended periods of time.

If he hasn't received a medical diagnosis then he's not only placing his golf career at risk but his long term well being, back injuries can be very serious.  

[Pretzel]

I agree. He doesn't need to disclose exactly what his injuries are, but it is kind of important to not just go completely mute for months when you're trying to garner donations, sponsors, and cashflow.

It would take Dan approximately 1 hour out of his day to write a solid blog post about his progress and what he's working on in terms of physical therapy, his golf game, etc. If he even did it once a week it would occupy a grand total of .6% of his time across the week, leaving him with 99.4% of the rest of the week for sleeping, eating, working, etc. 1 hour a week is not that much to expect from a guy that you are looking to potentially give cash to.

I dunno what's up, but something is certainly awry. It really isn't hard at all to write a quick blog post updating others of the situation, especially as the golf season gears up in Oregon. The last update made it seem like Dan could still practice his short game and putting, why isn't he doing that? If he's working on the side, why hasn't he mentioned that he has decided to generate additional revenue on the side. As a freelance marketing agent/photographer I'm sure he could schedule his time to still allow for plenty of golf practice while maintaining his lifestyle.

[Lihu]

I still wonder if his swing is such that it injures his back?

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Pretzel said:

I agree. He doesn't need to disclose exactly what his injuries are, but it is kind of important to not just go completely mute for months when you're trying to garner donations, sponsors, and cashflow.

It would take Dan approximately 1 hour out of his day to write a solid blog post about his progress and what he's working on in terms of physical therapy, his golf game, etc. If he even did it once a week it would occupy a grand total of .6% of his time across the week, leaving him with 99.4% of the rest of the week for sleeping, eating, working, etc. 1 hour a week is not that much to expect from a guy that you are looking to potentially give cash to.

I dunno what's up, but something is certainly awry. It really isn't hard at all to write a quick blog post updating others of the situation, especially as the golf season gears up in Oregon. The last update made it seem like Dan could still practice his short game and putting, why isn't he doing that? If he's working on the side, why hasn't he mentioned that he has decided to generate additional revenue on the side. As a freelance marketing agent/photographer I'm sure he could schedule his time to still allow for plenty of golf practice while maintaining his lifestyle.

I don't think that it's as simple as that.

I don't think he would get many donations if he suddenly posted. I doubt he was getting very many donations toward the end of his run there when he was playing.

2 hours ago, Lihu said:

I still wonder if his swing is such that it injures his back?

Every golf swing can injure your back.

[Pretzel]

While that's true, posting is generally a requirement to potentially get new donors involved, so he's limiting himself severely in that regard. It'll be hard for him to regain his footing after this. 

[flopster]

On ‎2‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 4:40 AM, iacas said:

I don't think that it's as simple as that.

I don't think he would get many donations if he suddenly posted. I doubt he was getting very many donations toward the end of his run there when he was playing.

Every golf swing can injure your back.

Dan's swing to me looked very contrived at times and his unwillingness to tear down all the flaws and start over with solid fundamentals I believe ultimately led to his injuries, here's a guy spending 30+ hours a week swinging a club in a way that can hurt him eventually and in fact did, he had all the time in the world to undo the flaws and swing a club in a more proper form which imo limits the chances of injury, if there is one thing we can take away from this is if your going to dedicate a lot of time practicing get a lesson first and periodically as often as possible, Dan like many people thought he could figure it out on his own and discarded instruction when funds got tight which was the worst decision he could have made.

[newtogolf]

3 hours ago, flopster said:

Dan's swing to me looked very contrived at times and his unwillingness to tear down all the flaws and start over with solid fundamentals I believe ultimately led to his injuries, here's a guy spending 30+ hours a week swinging a club in a way that can hurt him eventually and in fact did, he had all the time in the world to undo the flaws and swing a club in a more proper form which imo limits the chances of injury, if there is one thing we can take away from this is if your going to dedicate a lot of time practicing get a lesson first and periodically as often as possible, Dan like many people thought he could figure it out on his own and discarded instruction when funds got tight which was the worst decision he could have made.

I blame his swing coach or instructor for that.  Dan started out putting and progressed to longer shots.  There's no reason for him to end up with a flawed swing except for his instructor having taught him to swing incorrectly.  

[Abu3baid]

13 hours ago, flopster said:

Dan's swing to me looked very contrived at times and his unwillingness to tear down all the flaws and start over with solid fundamentals I believe ultimately led to his injuries, here's a guy spending 30+ hours a week swinging a club in a way that can hurt him eventually and in fact did, he had all the time in the world to undo the flaws and swing a club in a more proper form which imo limits the chances of injury, if there is one thing we can take away from this is if your going to dedicate a lot of time practicing get a lesson first and periodically as often as possible, Dan like many people thought he could figure it out on his own and discarded instruction when funds got tight which was the worst decision he could have made.

The back will give out even if your swing is flawless.. The whole golf swing is an injury waiting to happen..  Even if he had a perfect swing that doesn't mean he wouldn't have injured himself, nor does it mean that he would have reduced his chances of injuring his back.  I personally don't think there is a relationship there.  ie Tiger Woods (flawless swing)

[nevets88]

Memory's fuzzy, but back problem may have had something to do w/moving. IME, not a rare occurrence to hurt your back after a move.

Be careful when you do stuff around the house that involves heavy things or lots of repetitive motion. 

[newtogolf]

5 hours ago, Abu3baid said:

The back will give out even if your swing is flawless.. The whole golf swing is an injury waiting to happen..  Even if he had a perfect swing that doesn't mean he wouldn't have injured himself, nor does it mean that he would have reduced his chances of injuring his back.  I personally don't think there is a relationship there.  ie Tiger Woods (flawless swing)

I disagree, a number of pro golfers play their entire careers without any back injuries.  Individual swings place stress on different body parts.  Tiger had a pretty violent swing that also placed a lot of stress on his left knee and eventually damaged it.  

[Abu3baid]

44 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

I disagree, a number of pro golfers play their entire careers without any back injuries.  Individual swings place stress on different body parts.  Tiger had a pretty violent swing that also placed a lot of stress on his left knee and eventually damaged it.  

And a lot more amature golfers play their entire "career" without back injury as well.   In fact, statistically a lot more armatures play without back injury than pro golfers since the number of pros are such a small population of the entire golfing world.

http://www.hughston.com/hha/a.golf.htm

Quote

Golf is usually considered a low level activity, but golfers often suffer serious injuries. Over 50% of touring professionals have had to stop playing because of injuries. The motion of a golf swing, if done incorrectly, can cause injuries in many parts of the body. A golf swing involves a large trunk rotation and requires you to move both shoulders through a wide range of motion at very high speeds. Unlike professionals, amateur golfers are not as conditioned to make these motions. However, both amateur and professional golfers commonly injure their backs, elbows, shoulders, and wrists. If you have injured any of these areas, you may need to be examined by your family doctor or orthopaedist. 

 

 

Don't know how accurate this is, but give me sometime to research more.  My point still stands is that someone can't just simply blame the swing flaws Dan has in his swings for his back injury.

[Lihu]

7 hours ago, Abu3baid said:

20 hours ago, flopster said:

Dan's swing to me looked very contrived at times and his unwillingness to tear down all the flaws and start over with solid fundamentals I believe ultimately led to his injuries, here's a guy spending 30+ hours a week swinging a club in a way that can hurt him eventually and in fact did, he had all the time in the world to undo the flaws and swing a club in a more proper form which imo limits the chances of injury, if there is one thing we can take away from this is if your going to dedicate a lot of time practicing get a lesson first and periodically as often as possible, Dan like many people thought he could figure it out on his own and discarded instruction when funds got tight which was the worst decision he could have made.

 

The back will give out even if your swing is flawless.. The whole golf swing is an injury waiting to happen..  Even if he had a perfect swing that doesn't mean he wouldn't have injured himself, nor does it mean that he would have reduced his chances of injuring his back.  I personally don't think there is a relationship there.  ie Tiger Woods (flawless swing)

At least in my case, I used to get injured swinging at balls the wrong way. Now, I can really go after the ball and not hurt myself. I'm sure if I really really went after it I could hurt my back, but I think I would hurt more things than just my back.

 

2 hours ago, newtogolf said:

I disagree, a number of pro golfers play their entire careers without any back injuries.  Individual swings place stress on different body parts.  Tiger had a pretty violent swing that also placed a lot of stress on his left knee and eventually damaged it.  

True, I think good mechanics reduces the chances of injury because you are putting in only effort to make an efficient swing.

[nevets88]

17 minutes ago, Lihu said:

At least in my case, I used to get injured swinging at balls the wrong way. Now, I can really go after the ball and not hurt myself. I'm sure if I really really went after it I could hurt my back, but I think I would hurt more things than just my back.

True, I think good mechanics reduces the chances of injury because you are putting in only effort to make an efficient swing.

 

Please start a new topic in the fitness and exercise forum about this.

[flopster]

5 hours ago, nevets88 said:

 

Please start a new topic in the fitness and exercise forum about this.

True some of us are talking about personal experience with back injuries caused by golf but it all stemmed from my belief his swing mechanics may have had a significant impact upon his injury, I think Dan overdoes it most of the time for what his body can handle and would have been better served with a focused strengthening program to increase core strength and flexibility along with a dedication to learning a golf swing with sound fundamentals, instead he thought he was cruising right along through 10hdcp down through 5 hdcp and hit his wall for what his talent/abilities could produce with flawed mechanics, instead of having the courage to undo his swing which for the vast majority of golfers knew would never get him even to scratch he chose to plod on thinking he could somehow figure this out (which never happens) and then ultimately hurting himself very badly. In my opinion he needs a MRI done to see where the damage happened a chiropractor is not going to fix this, what most need to realize is that Dan is doing a lot more practicing with flawed mechanics and this was a train wreck waiting to happen.

[Lihu]

The key in the article posted by @Abu3baid  is if a golf swing is done incorrectly it can lead to injury.

My guess is that Dan injured himself from overturning his spine especially in the follow through.