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

[DrvFrShow]

On 12/9/2015 at 10:11 PM, Mjrowe1 said:

I started playing golf at the beginning of the year and got a Golf Australia handicap of 27.5 in April, I have set myself a goal of getting to scratch in 18 months. 8 months later I have a GA handicap of 13.7. Is my goal possible? Is there anyone out there that has done the same who can give some solid advice?

 

What you need to work on is accuracy with your approach shots. This means not just lateral control, but distance control with your clubs. Distance control is much more difficult than lateral control. It requires that you make consistent contact. It takes a lot of practice. The difference between a +2 and a +10 is distance control. The difference between a +10 and a +20 is lateral and distance control.

This is not out of my fingers. I'm relaying this from a pro.

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, sjduffers said:

Note that the OP mentioned averaging (probably on good drives only) 230-240 meters, so that's 250-265 yards, pretty long already, and not a limitation for a scratch golfer who is expecting to average around 250 yds according to the USGA definition of a scratch golfer.

I meant that distance as a potential pro-level limiting factor. He's plenty long for scratch, just short on playing / practice time for total skill development. I was saying he might even have long-term pro potential if his distance grows along with his body and swing technique.

[No Mulligans]

I think it's possible, as Lihu wrote, Greg Norman did it.

Many on this site have said that it gets much harder to lower your HI as you get closer to scratch.

Where do you low handicappers think being half way there (or nine months in) would be?  Certainly not a 15... maybe a 5 after nine months and you would be on track?

[Lihu]

10 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

I think it's possible, as Lihu wrote, Greg Norman did it.

Many on this site have said that it gets much harder to lower your HI as you get closer to scratch.

Where do you low handicappers think being half way there (or nine months in) would be?  Certainly not a 15... maybe a 5 after nine months and you would be on track?

IDK, golf just does not appear to be a sport most people (99.9999%) can learn that quickly? Quite possibly one in a million might be like Greg Norman?

At 9 months I would think our OP should be like a 3-5HC at his halfway point? However, he is in Australia, and he needs to play a lot of tournament rounds to get that handicap lower so maybe he is already capable of playing near par golf even at his current 13 handicap?

I don't know what "parr" means?

[natureboy]

22 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

I think it's possible, as Lihu wrote, Greg Norman did it.

Many on this site have said that it gets much harder to lower your HI as you get closer to scratch.

Where do you low handicappers think being half way there (or nine months in) would be?  Certainly not a 15... maybe a 5 after nine months and you would be on track?

Yes at that practice rate a 5 might be expected around ~ 360 hours would get to a scratch in 8 months or ~ 720 accumulated hours. Might also have in the neighborhood of +8 potential.

Edited December 10, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

Just now, natureboy said:

Yes at that practice rate a 5 might be expected around ~ 360 hours would get to a scratch in 8 months or ~ 720 accumulated hours. Might also have +8 potential.

Not sure how you can say this?

[natureboy]

5 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Not sure how you can say this?

I must have made it up, right? But interesting how it roughly corresponds to a HOF'er like Norman eh? Parr or Par is just a game that simplifies scoring like Stableford. As I understand it, both systems have been well correlated for average score vs. HCP so they can be used for that purpose if allowed under the HCP system.

Edited December 10, 2015 by natureboy

[Pretzel]

8 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

I think it's possible, as Lihu wrote, Greg Norman did it.

Many on this site have said that it gets much harder to lower your HI as you get closer to scratch.

Where do you low handicappers think being half way there (or nine months in) would be?  Certainly not a 15... maybe a 5 after nine months and you would be on track?

I would say that probably half of my work happened before I reached a handicap of around 5-8 or so, and the rest of it has been fine-tuning since that point. This would be assuming I hit scratch this next summer, I would then call that range of handicaps a "halfway point" of sorts. The problem is it's hard to quantify exactly because I haven't reached that point quite yet, so I don't know exactly how much work it will take for me to shave off that final stroke to be scratch.

This is an assumption I'm making just based off of playing time, rather than time as it relates to a calendar, because the summer I jumped from an 8 to a 2.4 saw me play about as much golf as I had since I started. In 2015 I honestly probably only played about 20-25 times, since I was busy enough that I usually could only squeeze in maybe one practice round before each of my tournaments (I had 9 tournament rounds, with some being 2 day events) plus a little extra golf on the side. In that time I only dropped from a 2.4 to a 1.0, so I still made progress (though most of the progress was simply the removal of older scores since my handicap is composed pretty much exclusively of tournament rounds). From the standpoint of the amount of work I have (and plan to) put into golf, 5 would be a realistic halfway point.

From the standpoint of calendar time, regardless of how much time I actually devoted to golf during that timeframe, it will have taken me five years to reach scratch if I get there this next summer. That means that a calendar halfway point would put me at the end of the junior year golf season, or around an 8 handicap. This means that's the realistic halfway point for me in terms of calendar time.

My answer of 5-8 is simply based off my two answers, of 5 and 8, from two different methods. It's the "halfway point" for me, but not necessarily the halfway point for anyone else.

[natureboy]

27 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I would say that probably half of my work happened before I reached a handicap of around 5-8 or so, and the rest of it has been fine-tuning since that point. This would be assuming I hit scratch this next summer, I would then call that range of handicaps a "halfway point" of sorts

From the standpoint of calendar time, regardless of how much time I actually devoted to golf during that timeframe, it will have taken me five years to reach scratch if I get there this next summer. That means that a calendar halfway point would put me at the end of the junior year golf season, or around an 8 handicap. This means that's the realistic halfway point for me in terms of calendar time.

My answer of 5-8 is simply based off my two answers, of 5 and 8, from two different methods. It's the "halfway point" for me, but not necessarily the halfway point for anyone else.

What would you say your accumulated play and practice time is now and was when you got to a 6.5?

Edited December 10, 2015 by natureboy

[parman]

New guy here, hello. I've been playing golf for 55 years. I got down to an 8 index two years ago while belonging to a CC. I played/practiced almost every day I hit tons of balls plus exercise. I spent hours and hours on the range. Anything below a 10 is going to be a lot of work and dedication. I am not going to intentionally try and get that low again. I would rather relax and enjoy more. Not hitting a good shot or missing a makable putt 4 times per 9 is not easy for anyone. But if that's your goal I hope you achieve what you are trying to do. So far you seem to have done well.

[Pretzel]

3 hours ago, natureboy said:

What would you say your accumulated play and practice time is now and was when you got to a 6.5?

That I can't really say with any accuracy because I haven't tracked my rounds and practice too carefully. If I had to hazard a guess I would say probably between 200-300 rounds of golf in total, with likely a similar number of hours in just general practice. That would equate to probably somewhere around a total of around maybe 1500 hours of practice counting the rounds for the full duration? This was starting from about a 25 handicap when I began to play seriously rather than just swatting it around with my grandpa, not quite from a complete beginner.

[Lihu]

40 minutes ago, parman said:

New guy here, hello. I've been playing golf for 55 years. I got down to an 8 index two years ago while belonging to a CC. I played/practiced almost every day I hit tons of balls plus exercise. I spent hours and hours on the range. Anything below a 10 is going to be a lot of work and dedication. I am not going to intentionally try and get that low again. I would rather relax and enjoy more. Not hitting a good shot or missing a makable putt 4 times per 9 is not easy for anyone. But if that's your goal I hope you achieve what you are trying to do. So far you seem to have done well.

Welcome to this site!

I completely agree, it's not easy to shoot anything close to scratch unless you have the distance to make birdies readily.

Much more fun just enjoying the game. . .

[natureboy]

12 hours ago, Pretzel said:

That I can't really say with any accuracy because I haven't tracked my rounds and practice too carefully. If I had to hazard a guess I would say probably between 200-300 rounds of golf in total, with likely a similar number of hours in just general practice. That would equate to probably somewhere around a total of around maybe 1500 hours of practice counting the rounds for the full duration? This was starting from about a 25 handicap when I began to play seriously rather than just swatting it around with my grandpa, not quite from a complete beginner.

You could be underestimating the value of the accumulated hours swatting it around. That's all learning time. But taking your high side estimate of hours that would indicate you were a 25 HCP after about 60 hours of total playing / practice time and 6.5 around 580 hours, yes? Scratch might be expected in another ~ 700 hours of accumulated time. You and the OP may be on similar long-term tracks unless you are actually on the low side of the hours estimate. Do you have HCP #'s for some of your recent 200-300 rounds with a rough estimate of which round number it corresponds to?

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

26 minutes ago, natureboy said:

You could be underestimating the value of the accumulated hours swatting it around. That's all learning time. But taking your high side estimate of hours that would indicate you were a 25 HCP after about 60 hours of total playing / practice time and 6.5 around 580 hours, yes? Scratch might be expected in another ~ 700 hours of accumulated time. You and the OP may be on similar long-term tracks unless you are actually on the low side of the hours estimate. Do you have HCP #'s for some of your recent 200-300 rounds with a rough estimate of which round number it corresponds to?

@Dave2512 also tracked the OPs progress down to a 12-13?

Not sure what you count as practice? Until recently, I would have guessed any time knocking balls around. Now, I think my practice time is just under an 20 minutes a day. My workout time is another 2 hours doing golf related movements. On the days I play, I spend 5-10 minutes practicing.

@Pretzel is in university studying engineering, which takes a huge amount of his time. There wouldn't be much of a comparison. His goal of reaching scratch is very realistic, the OP reaching the same goal in 10 months is not something anyone can predict. Many other's have done the same thing as the OP, but not many are at @Pretzel's level.

My son's friend from grade school is now scratch. It took him 10 years of dedicated practice to get there. It took him roughly 8 months to get to a 13 playing only tournaments, which is why he dedicated so much time to it. He was 7 years old at the time. He's doing very well at a division 1 high school for golf. He's even been invited to play Pebble Beach and shot to his handicap as a 1.7. From what I understand, he is pretty exceptional already.

 

[natureboy]

42 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Not sure what you count as practice?

@Pretzel is in university studying engineering, which takes a huge amount of his time. There wouldn't be much of a comparison. His goal of reaching scratch is very realistic, the OP reaching the same goal in 10 months is not something anyone can predict. Many other's have done the same thing as the OP, but not many are at @Pretzel's level.

My son's friend from grade school is now scratch. It took him 10 years of dedicated practice to get there. It took him roughly 8 months to get to a 13 playing only tournaments, which is why he dedicated so much time to it. He was 7 years old at the time. He's doing very well at a division 1 high school for golf. He's even been invited to play Pebble Beach and shot to his handicap as a 1.7. From what I understand, he is pretty exceptional already.

 

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.

Personally, I think any time playing the game or 'messing around' with it's basic skills is learning time. Even screwing around on the practice tee or putting green. You are learning some things that work others that don't and 'teaching' your body and hands somewhat. I don't think it's as efficient a way to learn as dedicated practice, but research shows there is definite merit in deliberately overdoing something and underdoing something to ingrain a feel or touch.

It's a big accomplishment, but I don't think 10 years of dedicated practice to get to scratch is as exceptional as you think, unless the accumulated practice time within that span was say 5,600 hours or less. The initial speed of the drop and the ability to sustain a decent progress slope against the diminishing returns I think is what is largely (though not perfectly) predictive of 'innate ability' and long term potential. You can always keep chipping away at it if you are dedicated, it just gets harder and harder. But breakthroughs like you had with distance do happen and matter to keeping the progress from flattening out. Similarly burnout or regression due to 'forgetting' can happen to flatten out an initially steep progress track.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[Lihu]

8 minutes ago, natureboy said:

It's a big accomplishment, but I don't think 10 years of dedicated practice to get to scratch is as exceptional as you think, unless the accumulated practice time was say 5,600 hours or less. The initial speed of the drop and the ability to sustain a decent progress slope against the diminishing returns I think is what is largely (though not perfectly) predictive of 'innate ability' and long term potential. You can always keep chipping away at it if you are dedicated, it just gets harder and harder.

This kid is expecting to par most courses and shoot better than par half the time. He's one of the top in the region at this point, and he's pretty typical as far as number of hours and effort? I think he's put over 20,000 hours into it?

Your stating the OP making a 13 as being exceptional while this kid made it to the equivalent to a male 13 playing only tournaments at 7 years old in less time and not being exceptional confuses me a little?

[natureboy]

21 minutes ago, Lihu said:

This kid is expecting to par most courses and shoot better than par half the time. He's one of the top in the region at this point, and he's pretty typical as far as number of hours and effort? I think he's put over 20,000 hours into it?

Your stating the OP making a 13 as being exceptional while this kid made it to the equivalent to a male 13 playing only tournaments at 7 years old in less time and not being exceptional confuses me a little?

I'm saying the making a 13 in the time he indicated as being significant progress, yes. He still has to sustain a good rate of diminishing progress (break through plateaus) to realize that possibly high potential.

The kid's initial progress not playing or practicing other than doing tournaments, but I don't know how they rate tee distances for 7 year olds, or did he play from the tips? However, the added 20,000 hours to get to scratch to date would indicate to me that he will not progress much further without some sort of exceptional breakthrough or a further 5,000-10,000 hours of dedicated work. 20,000 hours is a lot for a kid. I hope he hasn't given up a life for golf. Are you sure you're not exaggerating? That level of effort for results would put him behind Dan McLaughlin in physical 'talent' potential as Dan could possibly hit 0 HCP around 15,000 hours on his current track.

Edited December 11, 2015 by natureboy

[natureboy]

38 minutes ago, natureboy said:

...The kid's initial progress not playing or practicing other than doing tournaments, was great...