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

[mchepp]

Ah, the Dan Plan. I wouldn't change anything I said in my article roughly a year ago. I feel that was the best post mortem we were going to get. I mentioned in that article that we were not going to hear anything more about this from him.

I get the inspiration part the new article is speaking too, but in reality that sound an awful lot like people looking for a silver lining. If I called Dan I would not be surprised to have him put a positive spin on things, like saying the inspirational part was the best part. I find that Portland business and folks who live here do that, it is definitely part of the culture here. 

I think it was wrong to ask for money and then just leave the game. Hopefully those that donated got something they wanted out of it. But to be fair to Dan, I have seen this happen with podcasts, other gofundme professional golfers, and many other things were people ask for money and the abruptly quit whatever it was they are doing. Seems to be a little bit of a thing these days. It doesn't make it right, but it is happening. The saying "Invest at your own risk" is even more important in this day and age. Dan is not the only one.

The nagging thing about the Dan Plan for me, is this had so much potential. The opportunity to test something that is argued about until this day. Oh well, guess we'll have to carry on arguing about it. 

[Lihu]

1 minute ago, mchepp said:

I find that Portland business and folks who live here do that, it is definitely part of the culture here. 

Didn't know for sure, but this was kind of what I was thinking. Isn't the Bay area kind of like that too?

 

1 minute ago, mchepp said:

The saying "Invest at your own risk" is even more important in this day and age. Dan is not the only one.

Pretty much sums up my feeling about this. To be honest, if I had invested in this endeavor it would have been just as or more successful as others that I lost money. However, I did enough due diligence that I knew this was going to fail about 2 years into it. As my game got better, I realized how crappy his was to be attempting to become a pro.

 

1 minute ago, mchepp said:

The nagging thing about the Dan Plan for me, is this had so much potential. The opportunity to test something that is argued about until this day. Oh well, guess we'll have to carry on arguing about it. 

Yes, I agree. There has to be a guinea pig for this experiment? Perhaps, we should start with a 10 to 12 year old kid who already plays to a single digit handicap? Guessing that anyone older will likely end in failure if we're talking about PGA Tour quality?

[nevets88]

29 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Ah, the Dan Plan. I wouldn't change anything I said in my article roughly a year ago. I feel that was the best post mortem we were going to get. I mentioned in that article that we were not going to hear anything more about this from him.

I get the inspiration part the new article is speaking too, but in reality that sound an awful lot like people looking for a silver lining. If I called Dan I would not be surprised to have him put a positive spin on things, like saying the inspirational part was the best part. I find that Portland business and folks who live here do that, it is definitely part of the culture here. 

I think it was wrong to ask for money and then just leave the game. Hopefully those that donated got something they wanted out of it. But to be fair to Dan, I have seen this happen with podcasts, other gofundme professional golfers, and many other things were people ask for money and the abruptly quit whatever it was they are doing. Seems to be a little bit of a thing these days. It doesn't make it right, but it is happening. The saying "Invest at your own risk" is even more important in this day and age. Dan is not the only one.

The nagging thing about the Dan Plan for me, is this had so much potential. The opportunity to test something that is argued about until this day. Oh well, guess we'll have to carry on arguing about it. 

My hope was that it would be hugely successful, kick the instruction industry in the butt to improve itself.

[Lihu]

20 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

My hope was that it would be hugely successful, kick the instruction industry in the butt to improve itself.

That's a good thought.

I'm kind of still new to golf relative to many of you (including you), but from my limited experience, it seems like the golf instruction industry is pretty good at kicking themselves and other instructors in the butt.

Seriously, it seems like the biggest realization (mainly from this site's practices), is that every swing is tailored for individual golfers. From my limited understanding, that seems to be changing instruction at least in the last several years? What works for one person might not work for others. The only thing you can do is look for commonalities in good swings and get the student to adhere to those basics while still swinging naturally?

Lot's of things have changed in the last few years, and it seems like the average player is a bit better now. Statistically, the average male player has gone from 200 yard to 208 yard drives and handicaps from 16 down to 14 in the last decade or so? Is that possibly from instruction or equipment or both?

The Dan Plan never really addressed the average golfer. It seemed to be more directed towards Dan.

[mchepp]

2 hours ago, Lihu said:

Didn't know for sure, but this was kind of what I was thinking. Isn't the Bay area kind of like that too?

I have lived in both places and it is DEFINITELY NOT a Bay Area thing. 

[Pretzel]

5 hours ago, Lihu said:

There was so much negativity I don't blame him for just walking away. That and he could have just figured all the negative stuff was already said many times about him failing anyway.

 

Hey, I would've been positive if he came out and said,

"Hey guys, golf is harder than I thought. You remember when I insulted all you golfers by saying I'd be able to go from having never touched a club to the PGA tour in only six years? I realize now that golf is quite a bit harder than I expected and that the goal I set was quite a bit above "expert" proficiency and much closer to the level of "mastery". I can't continue due to injuries, but I concede that I wasn't on track to make the tour looking at things from an hours perspective or a timeline perspective. I do, however, think I would have been capable of scratch golf given another 4,000 hours of dedicated practice."

Honestly anything like that would've made me think quite a bit more of Dan since it would prove he realizes he made mistakes and he's able to admit it. I think his goal was unrealistic since the 10,000 hours theory never said you were going to be one of the top .000005% of people (assuming 300 PGA tour players and 60,000 golfers) in a given discipline. Remember, he said he wanted to hold a tour card at first, not just play in one, so I think 300 is a realistic number to use when estimating the players who hold a tour card currently. Scratch or better golf is among the top 2.55% of all male golfers with a handicap, which I would certainly consider to be an "expert" level of proficiency and would have been a MUCH better goal to have from the onset, avoiding a majority of the negativity (though also losing out on some publicity).

[Lihu]

5 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Hey, I would've been positive if he came out and said,

"Hey guys, golf is harder than I thought. You remember when I insulted all you golfers by saying I'd be able to go from having never touched a club to the PGA tour in only six years? I realize now that golf is quite a bit harder than I expected and that the goal I set was quite a bit above "expert" proficiency and much closer to the level of "mastery". I can't continue due to injuries, but I concede that I wasn't on track to make the tour looking at things from an hours perspective or a timeline perspective. I do, however, think I would have been capable of scratch golf given another 4,000 hours of dedicated practice."

Honestly anything like that would've made me think quite a bit more of Dan since it would prove he realizes he made mistakes and he's able to admit it. I think his goal was unrealistic since the 10,000 hours theory never said you were going to be one of the top .000005% of people (assuming 300 PGA tour players and 60,000 golfers) in a given discipline. Remember, he said he wanted to hold a tour card at first, not just play in one, so I think 300 is a realistic number to use when estimating the players who hold a tour card currently. Scratch or better golf is among the top 2.55% of all male golfers with a handicap, which I would certainly consider to be an "expert" level of proficiency and would have been a MUCH better goal to have from the onset, avoiding a majority of the negativity (though also losing out on some publicity).

Sure that would be nice, but we already all knew this long before he quit. Honestly, I don't see a point for him to say all this at this point. It would be nice, but most people who lose at a project or business just walk away and start something new.

12 minutes ago, mchepp said:

I have lived in both places and it is DEFINITELY NOT a Bay Area thing. 

Oops, didn't mean to insult your "Bay area-ness".

I have relatives and friends up there (including my sister) and grew up there as a kid, but didn't really pick up on any of the "Silicon Valley" norms. So, I have no idea how people behave up there. . .

[Pretzel]

Just now, Lihu said:

Sure that would be nice, but we already all knew this long before he quit. Honestly, I don't see a point for him to say all this at this point. It would be nice, but most people who lose at a project or business just walk away and start something new.

 

Fair enough. It just would feel quite a bit more honest than the crap he's slinging about trying to make the senior tour. Only 5 new players are given fully exempt status each year for the senior tour, and 7 given status when space is available. It's harder to make that tour than it is to make it onto the PGA, especially if you include the fact that Dan may now have a chronic injury related to golf if his posts are anything to go by.

I just would prefer an honest statement to a lie as transparent as a window.

[Lihu]

Just now, Pretzel said:

Fair enough. It just would feel quite a bit more honest than the crap he's slinging about trying to make the senior tour. Only 5 new players are given fully exempt status each year for the senior tour, and 7 given status when space is available. It's harder to make that tour than it is to make it onto the PGA, especially if you include the fact that Dan may now have a chronic injury related to golf if his posts are anything to go by.

I just would prefer an honest statement to a lie as transparent as a window.

I took that in a more humorous manner, and just kind of smirk/laughed/scoffed at that thought. . . I don't think he's really going to attempt that anyway. Once he plays one of the old 65+ year old players who "only" carries the ball 255 yards then hits a perfect shot onto the green or around it only to get something like 99% scrambling and 1 putt from 50 feet he'll give up that thought. I exaggerate, but even so. . .

[iacas]

I don't think he was gonna get to scratch.

And remember he was supposedly gonna spend a summer at Chautauqua with us?

[Pretzel]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't think he was gonna get to scratch.

And remember he was supposedly gonna spend a summer at Chautauqua with us?

 

 

Was he? I thought he never responded to that offer. 

I think he may have had a chance (not guaranteed, but could have) if he hadn't had a really bats*** crazy plan involving 3 months of nothing but short putts he might have had a chance with a good instructor who would meet regularly with him, but it seemed he ran out of funding really fast and then kind of kicked it around mostly on his own with infrequent lessons/video analysis after 1,000 hours or so.

I still can't wrap my head around how absolutely mind-numbingly boring it would've been to do nothing but putt for as long as he did. I wouldn't be surprised if it made him hate the game.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Pretzel

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Was he? I thought he never responded to that offer. 

I'm saying he was going to, and then he stopped responding altogether. And I never wrote back to say "what's up" because, frankly, I was pretty much offering him a pretty big favor. You'll recall I offered it free. He just had to find a place to stay and a way to get to the range when he wanted to be there.

30 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I think he may have had a chance (not guaranteed, but could have) if he hadn't had a really bats*** crazy plan involving 3 months of nothing but short putts he might have had a chance with a good instructor who would meet regularly with him, but it seemed he ran out of funding really fast and then kind of kicked it around mostly on his own with infrequent lessons/video analysis after 1,000 hours or so.

Maybe. With good instruction from the get-go, maybe.

30 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I still can't wrap my head around how absolutely mind-numbingly boring it would've been to do nothing but putt for as long as he did. I wouldn't be surprised if it made him hate the game.

At least that part happened right at the start, when ambition and energy would have been the highest.

[JetFan1983]

55 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

...a really bats*** crazy plan involving 3 months of nothing but short putts...

I still can't wrap my head around how absolutely mind-numbingly boring it would've been to do nothing but putt for as long as he did. I wouldn't be surprised if it made him hate the game.

This is the part that really sticks in my craw the most. Even in the interviews he gave after his back injury, when someone would ask him about this aspect of the project, he would still talk about the short putts as if they were a badge of honor of some kind. He spoke with arrogance over "the genius" of this part of the plan. Really? Now that you're a seasoned veteran, that's what you have to say about the first month or two of the plan? He really can't give a sane response like, "yea, so about that...Yea I had no clue what I was doing. I wouldn't have done it that way again, knowing what I know now. And that's a big thing to take away from a project like this: knowledge and experience can really be a rocket booster for your game if handled the right way."

But no, he learned literally nothing from it to the point where had he succeeded (and by "succeeded" I mean just completing the 10K hours), there's a lot of evidence to suggest he would have continued to encourage beginners to start this way. Absurd.

Don't get me wrong, he seems like a super nice person, as @mchepp has said he is in his interview, but he's also something of a small time huckster too. He was more low grade motivational speaker than he was a golfer.

Now all that being said, I found both his blog and webisode series to be pretty darn entertaining. In fact, the production value of those webisodes is pretty darn good all things considered. Credit to him for putting together a project that was easy to follow if one were so inclined. But the lessons he ultimately drew from the experience were sadly lacking in anything resembling actual wisdom. He could have talked about how hard it is find an instructor who is worth a damn. He could have talked about how the golf swing is such a foreign motion to the human body that it can lead to some gnarly injuries. He could have talked about so many realities of learning golf that one really can't know unless they live it themselves. Instead, he opted for the easy "inspirational" route. Oh well. The interesting thing is that despite his lack of self-awareness, we as readers can still draw our own conclusions from the project, so... readers didn't walk away with nothing.

24 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm saying he was going to, and then he stopped responding altogether. And I never wrote back to say "what's up" because, frankly, I was pretty much offering him a pretty big favor. You'll recall I offered it free. He just had to find a place to stay and a way to get to the range when he wanted to be there.

This is a chapter of the Plan I think we all wish we could've seen, as readers. Shame. Was this around when he got hurt (April 2015)? If this was summer 2014 when you offered, then his radio silence is a pretty good indication he was mentally checking out already.

 

Edited March 21, 2017 by JetFan1983

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

This is a chapter of the Plan I think we all wish we could've seen, as readers. Shame. Was this around when he got hurt (April 2015)? If this was summer 2014 when you offered, then his radio silence is a pretty good indication he was mentally checking out already.

It was when he was injured, but he wasn't saying that he was injured at the time. He was just talking about an "annoying" thing or something.

[GolfLug]

5 hours ago, Pretzel said:

Fair enough. It just would feel quite a bit more honest than the crap he's slinging about trying to make the senior tour. Only 5 new players are given fully exempt status each year for the senior tour, and 7 given status when space is available. It's harder to make that tour than it is to make it onto the PGA, especially if you include the fact that Dan may now have a chronic injury related to golf if his posts are anything to go by.

I just would prefer an honest statement to a lie as transparent as a window.

You know, you have to think that at some point some start believing in their own shit. Our minds exists in a very relative realm. Just gotta wallow in it long enough and with a couple of admirers it becomes the whole truth. Lines between what is realistic and what is not blurs out and at some point even erases out completely.

It is actually no different a path of development that someone with actual talent takes to actual success.. just has the right stuff to back it up. Dan never stood a chance and I am not sure he knew it. The 10,000 hour theory holds true to a very relative level of success, say 70th percentile of something.

3 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't think he was gonna get to scratch.

And remember he was supposedly gonna spend a summer at Chautauqua with us?

Yupp, even considering your teaching chops, not within a shouting chance.  

[JetFan1983]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

It was when he was injured, but he wasn't saying that he was injured at the time. He was just talking about an "annoying" thing or something.

OK, thanks. That's too bad. That would've been entertaining as hell to follow.

 

[nevets88]

If another person came around and did this "right", dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's would you follow? Because there are lots of instructors posting before and after results now. If someone came and provided extra detail, you would you give that much more time to some other dude's plan? 

[JetFan1983]

2 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

If another person came around and did this "right", dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's would you follow? Because there are lots of instructors posting before and after results now. If someone came and provided extra detail, you would you give that much more time to some other dude's plan? 

Well considering I sat through all of season two of the Haney Project, my standards are definitely low enough to watch season 2 of the Dan Plan... even though we know the inevitable outcome is failure. 

Perhaps we need to take this to the next level and do it like the Truman Show. Dan needs to have a son he can be a psycho sports dad to.