Is it possible to play off scratch from 30 in 18 months?

[Lihu]

11 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

Absolutely. My instructor was $120 an hour. I did bi-weekly one on one at $120/hr and weekly group sessions with access to FlightScope at $35/hr that got me about 10 minutes of face time with my instructor. I used an indoor range with video stalls that was $25/hr several times a week. I did Evolvr etc. It was a chunk of cash for sure. Around $200-400 a week at one point with green fees, it was nuts.

Actually, $400*10/12*52 (high price per week * 10 months in weeks)= $17,333 doesn't seem that bad if you could really get to scratch. Add to that about $6000 for a few equipment changes and fitting costs. Net cost is about $23,333 plus about 5 hours a day (round plus lesson time).

Golftec combined with Evolvr would probably cost something like that: https://www.golftec.com/golf-lessons/pricing

I wouldn't spend that kind of money though.

[MacDutch]

I think the question was with the assumption we are talking about adults. Kids differ a lot, because they cannot hit it far enough. 

So lets stop talking about kids here, maybe start an other thread?

[Lihu]

2 minutes ago, MacDutch said:

I think the question was with the assumption we are talking about adults. Kids differ a lot, because they cannot hit it far enough. 

So lets stop talking about kids here, maybe start an other thread?

I was guessing the OP is 14 to 17 years old?

BTW, the "kid" I was talking about drives 270 yards on average. Do you?

[MacDutch]

@Lihu

you were talking about a 7 years old and how long it took him to get to scratch. Thats what I ment with kids. 

[Pretzel]

3 hours ago, natureboy said:

Pretzel's progress to date indicates he might have ~ +2.5 long-term potential so I'm surprised he isn't playing on the college team, but maybe he started late relative to the guys on the team.

This is part of it (most kids on college teams started playing competitively in middle school or earlier, I waited until high school), but the funny thing is I actually was offered to play golf at a number of colleges, one of which was one that I had already been considering going to. I got like 50 emails from DIII coaches, just because they take practically anyone with a sliver of talent (most guys in that division don't break 80), but one of the school I was considering attending was a DII school that also offered me the opportunity to play. Unfortunately their engineering advisers were lying through their teeth to me about them having the required EE courses for the first two years of an EE degree, and they wouldn't let me see the course list until 30 before I was supposed to register, so I dropped that school at orientation and went to my second choice that I knew specifically had the EE courses I needed. This was too late for me to make the team since this school doesn't have tryouts, only recruitment. I'm not transferring to a DI school, CU Boulder, which means the competition level is much higher. I have to play better than scratch, likely at least at a +1, to be able to make the team there. Not impossible, it just means I'm going to work my keister off to attempt to get to that level. In the meantime I plan to tryout for the job of "Ralphie Handler" in the spring, since I have a farm background and can run fairly fast in short springs so it sounds like a fun way to make sure I stay in shape!

More onto the topic of the thread, what gives you indications of potential? For example, what things have I said that gave you the impression that I have the potential to be a +2.5 golfer versus a golfer who may not even reach scratch?

I can't give you an idea of how my rounds correlate to my handicap over the years, since I pretty much never kept track of every single round, but I can give you an accurate approximation of how it dropped last year versus the number of rounds I played during that timeperiod(since I know how many practice rounds I played for each tournament).

0 rounds - 2.5 - 5/1 revision

4 rounds - 1.8 - 5/15 revision

11 rounds - 1.7 - 6/1 revision

I then proceeded to break my toe and had to nearly a month off, but I think I must have posted scores late because the 

11 rounds - 1.3 - 6/15 revision

14.5 rounds - 1.3 - 7/1 revision

I must have also entered the rounds for this tournament late, or they didn't count until the next revision because I didn't play again and this is what it came up to.

14.5 rounds - 1.0 7/15 revision

I then proceeded to play in the neighborhood of 5-10 more rounds for the rest of the year, but no more tournaments so I didn't post any scores to my handicap. Coming this next summer I plan to post all scores, rather than just tournament scores, to my handicap to potentially get a better idea of my true progress (even if it may become less accurate for tournaments in the process). 

 

[Lihu]

16 minutes ago, MacDutch said:

@Lihu

you were talking about a 7 years old and how long it took him to get to scratch. Thats what I ment with kids. 

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I corrected myself later and stated that he went from around a 6 down to scratch in 2-3 years after his growth spurt. . .

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, Pretzel said:

I can't give you an idea of how my rounds correlate to my handicap over the years, since I pretty much never kept track of every single round, but I can give you an accurate approximation of how it dropped last year versus the number of rounds I played during that timeperiod(since I know how many practice rounds I played for each tournament).

hood of 5-10 more rounds for the rest of the year, but no more tournaments so I didn't post any scores to my handicap. Coming this next summer I plan to post all scores, rather than just tournament scores, to my handicap to potentially get a better idea of my true progress (even if it may become less accurate for tournaments in the process). 

 

So are these tournament rounds during 2014 or during 2015? If 2014, did you have tournaments in 2015 and have a HCP adjustment or did it stay at 1.0? Even if so it seems to not impact the curve too much - still about the same potential track. I'm giving you about 2,000 hours to date as I don't find the 1,500 hours progress track realistic. I would guess your halfway point in hours was around a 4. So your experience of rapid initial progress followed by slowing fits.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[Pretzel]

5 minutes ago, natureboy said:

So are these tournament rounds during 2014 or during 2015? If 2014, did you have tournaments in 2015 and have a HCP adjustment or did it stay at 1.0?

Those are from 2015. I have a spreadsheet somewhere of my tournament rounds since the beginning of 2014 with a cumulative scoring average and such, but I was just pulling this info from my ghin number, 7706075. They don't give me handicap history from 2014, only 2015 so I can't make the direct correlation like from the 2015 tournaments. 

[rkim291968]

1 hour ago, Pretzel said:

0 rounds - 2.5 - 5/1 revision

4 rounds - 1.8 - 5/15 revision

11 rounds - 1.7 - 6/1 revision

I then proceeded to break my toe and had to nearly a month off, but I think I must have posted scores late because the 

11 rounds - 1.3 - 6/15 revision

14.5 rounds - 1.3 - 7/1 revision

I must have also entered the rounds for this tournament late, or they didn't count until the next revision because I didn't play again and this is what it came up to.

14.5 rounds - 1.0 7/15 revision

I see a nice linear pattern here, congrats!   What do you think is the difference in your game between 5/1 and 7/15?  Where does the 1.5 improvement coming from? 

[Lihu]

27 minutes ago, natureboy said:

So are these tournament rounds during 2014 or during 2015? If 2014, did you have tournaments in 2015 and have a HCP adjustment or did it stay at 1.0? Even if so it seems to not impact the curve too much - still about the same potential track. I'm giving you about 2,000 hours to date as I don't find the 1,500 hours progress track realistic. I would guess your halfway point in hours was around a 4. So your experience of rapid initial progress followed by slowing fits.

Just wanted to bring out to light that something that looks like "fits" on a graph could mean only 1 stroke variation in handicap which at a: 4 is 25%; 3 is 33%; 2 is 50%.

19 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Those are from 2015. I have a spreadsheet somewhere of my tournament rounds since the beginning of 2014 with a cumulative scoring average and such, but I was just pulling this info from my ghin number, ########. They don't give me handicap history from 2014, only 2015 so I can't make the direct correlation like from the 2015 tournaments. 

Don't give out your GHIN and last name (not sure if you did in the past or not), @iacas mentioned that somewhere in the past. . .

[natureboy]

5 minutes ago, rkim291968 said:

I see a nice linear pattern here, congrats!   What do you think is the difference in your game between 5/1 and 7/15?  Where does the 1.5 improvement coming from? 

It's not linear if you track back to where he started, how quick he progressed and where he is likely to end up. Remember there are no plus 15's on the planet...that we know of anyway. 

7 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Just wanted to bring out to light that something that looks like "fits" on a graph could mean only 1 stroke variation in handicap which at a: 4 is 25%; 3 is 33%; 2 is 50%.

Not sure I understand what you mean by '25% at a 4', but sure they are only data points. I am talking about a rough relationship pattern in progress to time invested. Do you work in an industrial engineering field?

As far as your friend's son, if you count only the time in since his growth spurt as 'starting over' then he would be roughly on @Pretzel's track because of the time per year he plays & practices. But he could continue to make big gains as he grows. But I consider @Pretzel to have a bit more 'talent' because he has less than half the total time invested in learning and practicing the game and even if it's only short game skills that transfer from youth play, that counts for at least 30% of the game.

[Lihu]

15 minutes ago, natureboy said:

It's not linear if you track back to where he started, how quick he progressed and where he is likely to end up. Remember there are no plus 15's on the planet...that we know of anyway. 

Not sure I understand what you mean by '25% at a 4', but sure they are only data points. I am talking about a rough relationship pattern in progress to time invested. Do you work in an industrial engineering field?

As far as your friend's son, if you count only the time in since his growth spurt as 'starting over' then he would be roughly on @Pretzel's track because of the time per year he plays & practices. But he could continue to make big gains as he grows. But I consider @Pretzel to have a bit more 'talent' because he has less than half the total time invested in learning and practicing the game and even if it's only short game skills that transfer from youth play, that counts for at least 30% of the game.

I am an engineer, and I was just mentioning that you saw "slowing fits" in improvement. Just saying that a 1 stroke variation at that low a handicap is quite a large jump! This year he is hoping to make a >100% improvement in his game going from a 1 to a 0 or +.

The trends you are analyzing are interesting to look at, but I'm not sure you can really learn a lot? Golfer improvement could be very chaotic and highly non-linear.

[natureboy]

19 minutes ago, Lihu said:

I am an engineer, and I was just mentioning that you saw "slowing fits" in improvement. Just saying that a 1 stroke variation at that low a handicap is quite a large jump! This year he is hoping to make a >100% improvement in his game going from a 1 to a 0 or +.

The trends you are analyzing are interesting to look at, but I'm not sure you can really learn a lot? Golfer improvement could be very chaotic and highly non-linear.

The overall fit is that in the past year he has made relatively little progress compared to when he started investing time in learning / developing. Half @Pretzel's accumulated play and practice were from beginner / max HCP to a 5 (I would estimate) and the remaining accumulated practice time has taken him from a 5 to a 1. That is the important shape. I'd wager the overall average shape of the average curve is pretty steady. Talk to your company's production folks.

Sure the HCP jumps around in the relatively short-term, and individuals can stray off their initial trajectory. You are right that to some extent, the proof is in the pudding / the accomplishment in itself as lots can happen along the way to actualizing potential, but there is also something to how you got there. I respect the kid's accomplishment, better than I am likely to ever get, and a likely scholarship candidate. Just talking in the abstract about progress rates.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

23 minutes ago, natureboy said:

The overall fit is that in the past year he has made relatively little progress compared to when he started investing time in learning / developing. Half @Pretzel's accumulated play and practice were from beginner / max HCP to a 5 (I would estimate) and the remaining accumulated practice time has taken him from a 5 to a 1. That is the important shape. I'd wager the overall average shape of the average curve is pretty steady. Talk to your company's production folks.

Sure the HCP jumps around in the relatively short-term, and individuals can stray off their initial trajectory. You are right that to some extent, the proof is in the pudding / the accomplishment in itself as lots can happen along the way to actualizing potential, but there is also something to how you got there. I respect the kid's accomplishment, better than I am likely to ever get, and a likely scholarship candidate. Just talking in the abstract about progress rates.

Progress rate really depends upon many external and internal factors. IMHO, it's hard to glean anything off of a person's progress rate.

[natureboy]

6 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Progress rate really depends upon many external and internal factors. IMHO, it's hard to glean anything off of a person's progress rate.

I would agree with you if we are talking about a short time span. But across thousands of hours of cumulative invested development time, I think there's a fairly dependable relationship,

Also, I am talking about expected potential. I do believe everyone is individually capable of personal breakthroughs and setbacks that matter to long-term progress Could be wrong, but I expect I'm not.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

12 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I would agree with you if it was across a short time span, but across thousands of hours, I think there's a fairly dependable relationship.

What if there are significant gaps between the hours spent?

 

BTW, just changed my vote to "yes", because Greg Norman did it. So it is possible, even though not likely for the OP.

[natureboy]

16 minutes ago, Lihu said:

What if there are significant gaps between the hours spent?

I think that may be potentially important, because a lot of accumulated skill / touch / feels can be lost (forgetting curve) and may be slow to be re-acquired. One reason a lot of serious golfers have very short off-seasons and do a lot of off-season work to stay sharp. I suspect they intuitively recognize that regression lurks around the corner. That said a lot of pros spend a lot less time practicing than when they were coming up so the maintenance seems a bit less effortful than the progressing. Rory's time off due to injury hasn't seemed to hurt him too bad, nor Tiger's knee. Riding a bike is fairly complex and most can go without riding for decades and still do it fine so I think there is some retention of basic levels of complex skills, but there're probably a decay rate. Probably steeper for golf.

Quote

BTW, just changed my vote to "yes", because Greg Norman did it. So it is possible, even though not likely.

I would agree it's in the realm of possible and I started at yes. I switched to 'no', because I think it's super unlikely given his progress to date. If he had gotten to 5 in 5 months, I would have voted yes. I would still root for him to make it or gets close.

His progress is impressive. He shouldn't be discouraged if he doesn't turn out to be the next Greg Norman.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[natureboy]

On 12/10/2015 at 7:06 AM, natureboy said:

Assuming your practice estimates are correct at about 10 hours per week since January then you appear to be on a prodigious curve toward +3 pro territory.

As far as your scratch goal, a zero handicap is probably likely around 4000 hours of cumulative practice on your curve. At the time you set your goal you had ~ 160 and now you have 480 hours. You better up the practice time if you want to make it 'on schedule'. This works out to about 88 hours a week in your remaining 10 months. Assuming you are in school, this seems unlikely. But don't get frustrated by the slow progress, you have demonstrated considerable talent. Work toward building up a competitive game for school teams as a shorter-term goal.

Update @Mjrowe1 that I may have been a hair off with the way I set up your curve relative to the others. Sorry if you put too much stock by it.

I would reassess that depending on progress in the next few months the window might be longer to scratch - closer to a full 10,000 hours at the roughly estimated current rate of progress.

Given your relatively little time playing your performance will be up and down and it's very early to make a definitive call. The coach will help assess long range potential from there, but give it your best shot for the 10 month goal and see what happens - you could hopefully have multiple breakthroughs along the way!

Edited December 12, 2015 by natureboy