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

[Mjrowe1]

9 hours ago, Nagah said:

@Mjrowe1 Good luck on your venture mate. I play in Albury just up the road from Melbourne. Can I suggest you check golfgooroo.com.au it is a plug for a mate who was the number one hitter at Metro in the div 1 pennant team plus one about 5 club championships there. He got down to a plus 3 Handicap at metro.

His insights into the game and how he played 14 consecutive par or subpar rounds. He did this at 5 different courses too. 

Any Aussies here at the sand trap know that Metro is a sand belt course that is very hard to play to your handicap.

All the best on your venture.

@Nagah I'll have a look for sure. Albury has a few nice tracks around also, I play weekly with a guy from Corowa. 

Metro is known to be one of the hardest and also best on the sandbelt, playing off scratch there is a great achievement. Do you get to have a bash around metro ever? Have you played commonwealth before?

[GolfLug]

I got down to 7.4 best this year in August (have climbed back up now..  to around 9.5) from 16 in about 20 months by learning to manage a mid quality swing with a lot of professional help. I play with a couple of scratch and played with a +2.7 twice this year. I pay good attention to each shots, setup, course management same as they do. At this point the only difference I see is swing quality. The ball flight they generate efficiency they generate is different. You have to get to that level of swing. You have to get to get to that level of EFFICIENT QUALTIY of contact and swing. Attend a few state amateur championship type tourneys. You will see. You can't just scream out enough high notes. Well, you can, but there is just too much wobble and you will sustain it only briefly. They have to flow without red-lining.

I don't see how you can simply range beat your way to that level (definitely helps but not the only ticket). Not without an experienced eye to help. Find a proven professional and keep at it. Race against time mentality can be self defeating. Be patient and enjoy good shots. To get to scratch is one thing but to truly sustain a scratch level you just have to hit mostly good shots (not necessarily great shots). There is also a minimum requisite distance level. Really, being a bit redundant here, but forget about HCP and just focus on hitting good shots with low dispersion and given sufficient accumulation the mathematics of scratch will just float in one fine morning.

 

 

 

[Mjrowe1]

How is this Dan funding he's "Dan Plan"? How is it possible to get sponsorship for something like this without showing any great talent from the get go? I'm sure that someone with a decent swing to start with could do amazing things with there game if given the chance to train everyday with the right people in the right way.

 

Someone find me a sponsor and I will get there in a year? Anyone want to help?

[Lihu]

52 minutes ago, Mjrowe1 said:

How is this Dan funding he's "Dan Plan"? How is it possible to get sponsorship for something like this without showing any great talent from the get go? I'm sure that someone with a decent swing to start with could do amazing things with there game if given the chance to train everyday with the right people in the right way.

 

Someone find me a sponsor and I will get there in a year? Anyone want to help?

Dan does not have any real funding to speak of. Flightscope gave him a free unit to use, though? He also gets lots of free trips. . .

As you are a plumber who only needs to make enough to live on and let's assume it costs you $24,000 in lessons fittings and round costs, you shouldn't need to quit to do this. Theoretically, 4-5 hours a day working on your game is possible even of you needed to work a full 8 hours a day with your day job. Seems like you could get by with even just 5 hours a day of work?

[natureboy]

20 hours ago, Mjrowe1 said:

@natureboy thanks so much for the kind words. It has been quick to progress from where I was to where I am now but totally understand that this will slow to a crawl from here on in. My practice hasn't had any structure so far so I plan on making a plan and practicing with purpose over the next 10 months to help my chances as much as I can. I'm definately not in school, I'm 32 and work as a plumber, I do get to choose my own hours so it is a bit easier for practice time. I dont have to higher expectations on myself, I just really enjoy the sport and the challenge, I will keep you updated. Nice to hear positive feedback anyway.

Interesting that you are an adult. In that case, your current driving distance may indicate a hard limitation for progress beyond scratch. That could improve with better technique of course, but it tends to be a bit more unbudging with adults than juniors who are still growing.

I want to make sure you saw the post where I revised the scratch expectation to well down the road for you...with the caveat that it is early and you probably need to get up to around 2,000 hours of accumulated play & practice time before I would have really good confidence in my rough estimate of your likely upper HCP 'potential'. Please keep sharing your HCP progress along with estimates of your invested playing and practice time.

While there are many things that can happen, I am sure you are most definitely not on a Greg Norman type progress track. He was probably nibbling scratch around 1,000 hours of accumulated time (around 2x as much as you've done to date) and was likely around a 3 where you are now in accumulated time. If you get to scratch, I would think it's around the 10,000 hour mark (many years down the road at your current practice schedule), not in another 8-10 months...but many enjoyable years if you love the game as you say.

 

2 hours ago, Mjrowe1 said:

How is this Dan funding he's "Dan Plan"? How is it possible to get sponsorship for something like this without showing any great talent from the get go? I'm sure that someone with a decent swing to start with could do amazing things with there game if given the chance to train everyday with the right people in the right way.

Someone find me a sponsor and I will get there in a year? Anyone want to help?

Dan took a leap entirely on his own dime and then did the crowdfunding thing got an engaged social media following and then reached out for some sponsorships. He's a good marketer and storyteller. I expect he was a situation of right place and right time, but emulators of his approach may not be as successful. You may have potential to eke past him on the HCP side, but I don't think by more than a few points. Or if your progress tapers off more quickly than expected, then you are likely to end up on the same progress track as him. His stated ultimate goal of the PGA tour is extremely unlikely.

Edited December 14, 2015 by natureboy

[collapse]

5 hours ago, Lihu said:

Makes sense, but it's another to be able to do it.

I would like to see Mjrowe's practice schedule.If you check out the Dan plan,he had a real rigorous one.

[natureboy]

13 hours ago, Lihu said:

is only looking at numbers and graphs, he doesn't actually know what it takes to get from a 13.7 down to scratch. This is the basis of the difference in our points of view. IDK, either, but have a couple more data points, and feel like it's much much harder as you get better.

Yes, and my initial chart for the OP was setup a little off with his few data points. I was far too optimistic for him. Will depend a lot on his continuing rate of progress. But he looks clearly behind pro-level rates.

You are right that it gets much harder as you get better. But initial rate of progress and ability to sustain progress is very indicative of long-term potential, because the basic relationship of declining returns on effort (a decaying learning curve) applies. Sure you can keep grinding for 30,000 hours to reach a certain level, but a player with more 'innate talent' will hit that target in likely half the invested time and eventually surpass (if they put in enough work) the person with the headstart, whose learning curve has essentially flattened out and is effectively 'standing still'. Think how Lydia Ko is blowing by players with 20 years in the game. Her wins over the experienced field as an amateur were an indication of this future track. There is not an equal return on time invested to accomplishment across individuals (though there may be a 'typical one' for folks who make it to pro ranks). Individual learning curves vary, but they follow a general pattern - as you correctly point out - of declining returns to effort.

You may have experience with many high level juniors (I don't) who all have taken a minimum of 20,000+ hours of accumulated practice time to reach their current HCP level. I do view it as a skill in itself to be this focused and dedicated to improvement. It likely enables some to outlast more physically talented individuals who get distracted when the game gets more like 'work'. The relationship implies that everyone can keep getting better by sticking to the grind. Awesome! Unfortunately it also implies that for one player it might take 3, 6, or 10 times as long (in hours spent learning) as the other to get to the same point. At what point do you call it a day on the 40 hour a week practicing?...Probably depends how much you love the game in itself.

If a really long time window to achieve results is more typical let's look at that:

• 31,000 hours represents 15 years averaging 40 hours per week (~ 2,000 hrs annually) of play & practice - a rough ballpark for a young player working continuously very hard for a long time
• the underlying relationship implies that a top pro of +5 at 31k hours was around a +4.5 at 20k hours, around a +3.5 at 10k hours, and reached scratch around 2.4k hours
• a +1.5 at 31k hours was around a +0.5 at 20k hours, reached scratch around 16k hours, and was a 1 at 10k hours
• Dan Plan's current 'continuing improvement' track implies reaching ~ 0 HCP at 20,000 hours and +1 at 30,000 hours - if he can maintain his play and practice schedule (another 10 years is a big 'if') as well as hold off steeper learning curve decline

 

Quote

Give yourself 2 to 4 years or so, and even this is pretty aggressive. . .

You are right. See my revised estimate.

Edited December 14, 2015 by natureboy

[MacDutch]

I know of a pro who tried to get a group of adult (30-ish) guys within a year to scratch. They were practising all day and only 3 got to high single digits. I say its not impossible, but it is almost impossible. In my opinion there is more fun in getting better over the years. You will get frustrated and have no fun at playing golf if you set your goals too high. Golf is frustrating now and then even without the high goals.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, natureboy said:

Yes, and my initial chart for the OP was setup a little off with his few data points. I was far too optimistic for him. Will depend a lot on his continuing rate of progress. But he looks clearly behind pro-level rates.

You are right that it gets much harder as you get better. But initial rate of progress and ability to sustain progress is very indicative of long-term potential, because the basic relationship of declining returns on effort (a decaying learning curve) applies. Sure you can keep grinding for 30,000 hours to reach a certain level, but a player with more 'innate talent' will hit that target in likely half the invested time and eventually surpass (if they put in enough work) the person with the headstart, whose learning curve has essentially flattened out and is effectively 'standing still'. Think how Lydia Ko is blowing by players with 20 years in the game. Her wins over the experienced field as an amateur were an indication of this future track. There is not an equal return on time invested to accomplishment across individuals (though there may be a 'typical one' for folks who make it to pro ranks). Individual learning curves vary, but they follow a general pattern - as you correctly point out - of declining returns to effort.

You may have experience with many high level juniors (I don't) who all have taken a minimum of 20,000+ hours of accumulated practice time to reach their current HCP level. I do view it as a skill in itself to be this focused and dedicated to improvement. It likely enables some to outlast more physically talented individuals who get distracted when the game gets more like 'work'. The relationship implies that everyone can keep getting better by sticking to the grind. Awesome! Unfortunately it also implies that for one player it might take 3, 6, or 10 times as long (in hours spent learning) as the other to get to the same point. At what point do you call it a day on the 40 hour a week practicing?...Probably depends how much you love the game in itself.

If a really long time window to achieve results is more typical let's look at that:

• 31,000 hours represents 15 years averaging 40 hours per week (~ 2,000 hrs annually) of play & practice - a rough ballpark for a young player working continuously very hard for a long time
• the underlying relationship implies that a top pro of +5 at 31k hours was around a +4.5 at 20k hours, around a +3.5 at 10k hours, and reached scratch around 2.4k hours
• a +1.5 at 31k hours was around a +0.5 at 20k hours, reached scratch around 16k hours, and was a 1 at 10k hours
• Dan Plan's current 'continuing improvement' track implies reaching ~ 0 HCP at 20,000 hours and +1 at 30,000 hours - if he can maintain his play and practice schedule (another 10 years is a big 'if') as well as hold off steeper learning curve decline

 

You are right. See my revised estimate.

In general, I agree with trying to do trend analysis on a golfer's development, but it's so hard to predict what any individual will discover about themselves. He might make more rapid improvements as you initially ascertained, but equally probable, not. A specific golfer's development is too chaotic to predict with any certainty. There are even cases of people who played for years, then suddenly they started to improve rapidly when they finally got it.

Your calculations probably work very well when you take data from 1000 golfers and average their development graphs.

I'm not actually right, I just took a wild stab at the numbers which just happened to correlate with your current calculations. I also remember quite a few scratch to low single digit players on this site mentioning that it took them a couple to a few years to get that good.

[Nagah]

9 hours ago, Mjrowe1 said:

@Nagah I'll have a look for sure. Albury has a few nice tracks around also, I play weekly with a guy from Corowa. 

Metro is known to be one of the hardest and also best on the sandbelt, playing off scratch there is a great achievement. Do you get to have a bash around metro ever? Have you played commonwealth before?

Played Metro about 5 times with my mate Cam. Awesome track. Huntingdale and Yarra Yarra are also great courses. I play at Albury and Howlong mostly.

Theres a a young guy at Albury who plays on the colts pennant side at the Commonwealth. He plays off 2 at Albury.

 

[Mjrowe1]

7 hours ago, collapse said:

I would like to see Mjrowe's practice schedule.If you check out the Dan plan,he had a real rigorous one.

@collapse before this week I didn't have a practice schedule, I would go to the range and hit meaningless balls, some good, some bad, but with no direct intention. Today I started a training program given to me by a Thai pro, nothing over the top, it is just to set me in the right direction and see how it goes from there. Even from one practice session today I can see the benefits of training with purpose so I hope it brings me at least a little bit of success. I will keep you up to date with how it goes. Today the GA is 13.3. And targets hits was about 60-65%

[collapse]

28 minutes ago, Mjrowe1 said:

@collapse before this week I didn't have a practice schedule, I would go to the range and hit meaningless balls, some good, some bad, but with no direct intention. Today I started a training program given to me by a Thai pro, nothing over the top, it is just to set me in the right direction and see how it goes from there. Even from one practice session today I can see the benefits of training with purpose so I hope it brings me at least a little bit of success. I will keep you up to date with how it goes. Today the GA is 13.3. And targets hits was about 60-65%

Ok... how how much time is left on the 18 mo. plan since you began...about 6 or 7 months?

[Pretzel]

9 hours ago, collapse said:

I would like to see Mjrowe's practice schedule.If you check out the Dan plan,he had a real rigorous one.

You're a regular comedian. Dan was a clown who had no clue what he was doing and it showed, since he spent his first six months putting only. 

Also, I can tell you right now playing golf 4x a week (about what he did at his peak) is not as rigorous as you seem to think it was. Rigorous perhaps for a working individual, but certainly not for someone who quit his job to golf. 

[collapse]

4 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

You're a regular comedian. Dan was a clown who had no clue what he was doing and it showed, since he spent his first six months putting only. 

Also, I can tell you right now playing golf 4x a week (about what he did at his peak) is not as rigorous as you seem to think it was. Rigorous perhaps for a working individual, but certainly not for someone who quit his job to golf. 

If we believe what Dan tells us,it took him 27 mos. to go from his first round of golf to shooting a round of 2 under.If true he was doing something not so funny.

[Pretzel]

15 minutes ago, collapse said:

If we believe what Dan tells us,it took him 27 mos. to go from his first round of golf to shooting a round of 2 under.If true he was doing something not so funny.

If you believe what he tells us you're rather gullible, but it's an off topic point.

[collapse]

1 minute ago, Pretzel said:

If you believe what he tells us you're rather gullible, but it's an off topic point.

It's always best if you have proof that Dan is not being honest.

[Lihu]

16 minutes ago, collapse said:

If we believe what Dan tells us,it took him 27 mos. to go from his first round of golf to shooting a round of 2 under.If true he was doing something not so funny.

"If true".

It was an exceptional round, and at the same time his tournament scores were in the mid to high 80s. What this states is than when he is under a more controlled rule playing condition he shoots 15 stokes higher. Many on this site speculated he is a 12 HC based upon that performance. I argued that his potentially bad tournament scores were just pressure or something, but now realize that he most likely shot 2 under not playing by the rules. Not necessarily on purpose, but definitely not following them. No one who can break par by the rules and normally shoot 3 over would shoot high 80s in a tournament.

I reread some of his descriptions of his tournament rounds a couple months ago, and drew this conclusion based upon the fact that where he was shooting from his second shots were completely new situations to him. Read them, it's ridiculous.

[collapse]

29 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

If you believe what he tells us you're rather gullible, but it's an off topic point.

Lihu...........handicaps are generally not based on tournament play....Tiger Woods shot 84....Michelle Wie was on her way to an 88 before dropping out a few years ago.