Birdman10687

Not saying I agree or disagree with your theories, but I would say by the same token many people in this thread must play at courses with bizarrely easy greens. Stuff like "even bad putters will only 3 putt from the fringe 1/3 of the time." I think people really exaggerate how poorly things can go around the green. As if getting the ball close to the hole means "well even someone who has never played golf before can get it into the hole in 4 strokes if they are chipping." I hate the use of anecdotal evidence but I see lots of poor players spend 5, 6 even 7 strokes around the green to get it in. I just played with a high handicap friend today who had a 7 foot birdie putt and ended up 4 putting for a double bogie. Greens can be incredibly hard. You can misjudge speed and end up doubling the length of your putt. Skull a chip and wind up in a bunker. I often have holes or rounds where my ball striking is crap but I can still get it near the green to save scores. I.e. I top a drive, or chunk an approach but the ball still stays straight and goes a reasonable distance. I can't think of an analgous short game scenario where you make a bad stroke or completely misread speed but "accidently" end up ok. I'm not saying I disagree with you, I just see a lot of assumptions made about the skill differential in the short game and assumptions about how difficult putting can be score rise--i.e. 4 and 5 putting.

Sorry if it came across as a rant. I didn't mean it to. I love reading iacas's posts--they are always really really well thought out and in depth. So when I respond and share a different opinion, I likewise want to give it the level of effort he did. And I am by no means trying to say anyone is wrong or anything, I just wanted to give my impression and see what iacas thought since perhaps I am misunderstanding his point of view.

I'm not sure I 100% agree with this mantra. At the very least, this advice may not be good for everyone, and possibly good for no one. I may be misunderstanding the intent of the post, but it kind of sounds like you are saying its better to just incorporate key changes into your swing and move on than to understand the reasoning behind that change. One thing I have found over the years, and this isn't just with golf, but with anything, is understanding why means you are much more likely to remember it. I am an engineer so I can probably think of a bunch of weird examples where understand how something works helped me understand it overall use a lot better. However, one of the best analogies I can come up with comes from my years of playing the piano. I was never great at piano, but one thing I do remember one thing about learning pieces. You start out sight reading, practicing each and by itself slowly. Then you slowly put the hand together, measure by measure, section by section. Then you start to speed it up, still looking at the music as you play. Slowly you memorize the piece where you don't need the music. You still think about whats coming, as you are playing in your head you see the notes coming, the tempo, how each fits together. This is where you kind of have to be careful. Since I wasn't very good, I would often just play and play and play without music until the piece went from being memorized in my conscious brain to memorized in my subconscious--what people colloquially refer to as muscle memory. I could start the piece and literally check out and my hands would just do their thing. I wouldn't need to think about what was coming next my hands would just play. However, this invariably led to a situation where I actually FORGOT the notes but could still play the piece. If you grabbed me halfway through the piece and said "what actual notes are next?" I wouldn't be able to tell you. If you said "ok fine you may not be able to tell me but can you play them?" I wouldn't be able to do that either. I would have to actually start from the beginning if I got stopped in the middle. If I every made a mistake or my momentum got stopped I couldn't just pick up in the middle. I'd have to go back to square one. All because I forgot the way the piece worked and I was just being, as you put it, a "stupid monkey." This is my long way of saying I don't see how you can practice correctly and maintain a good swing without knowing why a swing the way it is. I don't see how you can take feedback from a round or a session of hitting balls and make the right corrections if you don't understand the why and the how of golf. If your ball start hooking like crazy and you don't understand ball flight laws and the effects swing path and face angle have on the ball, how would you know that you were flipping your wrists or getting you hands ahead of your hips or whatever it might be? And that is just basic ball flight stuff. I often hear how the short game and the game of golf in general is about creativity. How can you improvise if you don't know what does what? If you don't know how moving the ball back and forward in your stance affect trajectory and spin, how can you punch the ball under trees or keep the ball down in the wind? If your point is merely to say don't be a tinkerer, then ok. I agree that constantly making tons of tiny changes to your swing isn't productive. Perfect is the enemy of the good, and your swing will never be perfect. Professional help is good, but we don't have 24/7 access to someone to say "hey for the last 3 holes all my shots have been going high and fading, what do I need to fix?" Or even better, "hey I'm hitting off pine straw and I have to keep it low to get under those trees but it also has to carry that bunker and then stop on the other side how do I do that?" You need to know how your tools (the 14 clubs in the bag) can be used by you to manipulate the ball based on the situation to do what you want. Doesn't seem like something a stupid monkey can do, unless he memorizes every possible situation, lie, obstacle, distance, weather conditions he will ever experience and memorizes every possible kink in his swing that could happen and the exact fix for it.

Basically I find that golf is like a lot of other things--take the time to learn ettiquette and learn how make golf enjoyable for everyone using the course. I usually judge people by how the act on a golf course, not how well the play. This would be stuff like repairing ball marks. I don't care how bad you are, but if you don't repair your ball mark, it damages the green which affects other people. If you are terribly and take huge chunking divots (or even if you take out a nice thin divot like you are supposed to) I have no issues, except if you don't replace it. Because then there is a hole in the fairway. I don't care if you shoot double par, as long as you do it quickly so it doesn't affect others. My friend and I, who are not good golfers by any means, have perfected the art of playing quickly. We play ready golf, never caring who is "away." If you are ready to hit and the other person hasn't started their pre-shot routine, you hit. We have the 30 second rule--you look for your ball for 30 seconds. If you can't find it, drop in a reasonably playable area near where you think your ball went. We extend this to the 60 second rule if we are riding (since we save time because the cart is faster). Once we are on the green we probably only hole out 50% of the time because anything inside 2 feet is considered in. We almost never mark our balls and just each putt our ball all the way until we are done to save time. If either of us is having a truly atrocious hole (> double par and still not on the green) we are just pick up and go to the next hole. We use cheap balls since we aren't that good. We don't keep score since we aren't that good. We play fast since we aren't that good. I feel like the better you get, the more you earn the right to take your time on the course since you use fewer strokes. You also earn the right to use expensive balls and take time looking for them. And you earn the right to take the game seriously. If you want to come to the course and take the game really seriously and spend your time, then go to the range and learn how to play first. My buddy and can get through a round of 18 holes shooting double par on every hole (don't actually shoot that bad, but just hypothetically) and never have anyone wait on us. Obviously if anyone ever does, we just let them play through.

One of the confusions occurring in this thread is correlating Dan's outcome with the discussion about whether you can be born with innate ability. Some people clearly feel strongly that innate ability does exist (to the point of mocking opposing viewpoints) but that is only part of the discussion regarding Dan's plan. I tend to think innate talent doesn't exist, but even so, I do not think Dan will succeed for a few reasons: -He is too old. It is much easier to form new neural pathways when you are younger, which biologically makes sense. Genetics are a very basic road map to how to construct the body and some of our basic instincts like hunger, self-preservation, etc. Evolution has then equipped us with an adaptable brain to respond to whatever environment we live in and to learn whatever skills we need to survive. However, it makes sense that this ability to adapt and learn will be much more important at a young age as we first learn how to walk, interact, eat, hunt, etc, whatever skills we need. Accordingly, learning new skills as you get older requires much more effort. While it is not impossible, it takes more time. For Dan to accomplish at age 30 what most people on the PGA tour accomplished in their childhood and at the start of adulthood would take MUCH more effort. He is already playing at a disadvantage. If he really wanted to put in the necessary time, I don't think the 10k hour rule would apply, as that is derived mostly from world class performers who put in their 10k hours at a younger age. It might take 20k or 30k hours. Or more. But it definitely will/would take many more than 10k. -He is condensing his practice in to too short a time. He is attempting to complete his 10k hours in something like 6 years. Another, less discussed rule is the 10 year rule, which basically says that even with 10k hours, you still need about 10 years to become world class regardless of how much you practice. While this is more of an anecdotal rule, a better way to understand this is that the brain can not really handle many more than 3 hours of real practice a day. After that you brain starts to experience diminishing returns. Just like exercising a muscle, the time between practice is and important part of the loop when reinforcing neural pathways. We know this intuitively--practicing 1 hour 6 times a week is much more effective than practicing 6 hours once a week. Dan, I believe, is averaging something like 6 hours a day of golf practice. I think after about 3 he isn't gaining anything, so in effect, he is really only half as far along as he believes because he is trying to practice too much at a time. -I don't think he is practicing/learning the game of golf the right way. This particular point is a much more in depth discussion. But suffice it to say I don't think his approach of "learning the game from the hole out" is the most efficient. While we as conscious beings group all the skills the make up the game of golf into one talent, our unconscious bodies and brains don't really see any relation between something like hitting a drive and something like putting. There is minimal skill transfer between the two. As such, it is much more efficient to practice these skills in parallel rather than in series. Those days at the beginning Dan spent 6 hours or whatever just making 3 foot putts was just really inefficient when he could have spent an hour doing short puts, an hour chipping, and hour pitching, an hour hitting driver, etc. It is kind of the same principle weight lifters use when they work different muscle groups each day--exercise one group while the other is recovering, etc, rather than doing 2 workouts a week that work EVERY muscle. Just think how much further along he'd be if he'd been hitting driving for 3 years instead of 1 or however long he has actually been hitting it. This kind of goes with my previous point about your brain only being able to handle so much practice each day. A way to work around that is practice different skills in parallel so you can spend more time practicing each day and still making gains. I have thought most of these from the beginning and while I am rooting for Dan, have always been skeptical. I am a pretty avid chess player and I know there is a reason GMs and World Champions all tend to be young and fall off when they get older. Its easy to write off this phenomenon in sports as being deteriorating physical condition, but clearly if the talent is chess, we can see the mind, just like the body, deteriorates with age. I remember a few months ago my friend and I talking about Tiger Woods and other aging golfers and we were intrigued by the notion that, for the most part, the first part of a game most professional golfers lose is their putting. It seems completely counter-intuitive to us--wouldn't putting be the thing you should always be able to do? The swing is the physically demanding part of the game and should be the skill most susceptable to aging. However, when you understand the decreasing capability of the brain maintain and create neural pathways as it ages, it makes sense. I am very much against the idea of innate talent, but even so, there are times in any persons life when they are better suited to learning, and there are ways to learn that are better than others. I think Dan is, unfortunately for him, not on the good side of either one of those possibilites.

Your comments regarding Mozart seem to be a common misconception. Mozart was indeed composing at the age of 5, but it was far from world class music. Mozart was an undeniably talented musician, but he was being tutored by his father from an extremely early age. He is often cited as an example that natural talent exist. However, the issue is most fail to correctly estimate how much musical exposure and practice Mozart had by the age of five thanks to having an extremely accomplished teacher and a household that revolved around music. The second misconception is that he was world class at the age of 5. He was certainly a proficient musician at 5, but not world class.

This is such an absurdist argument. There is a biological explanation for the way skill is formed. There are cells in the brain called oligodendrocytes that insulate nerve fibers with myelin. This insulation allows for sequences of neurons to fire more rapidly and efficiently. Oligodendrocytes, when targeting which pathways to insulate with myelin, choose the neurons that fire most often. So any action you engage in--swinging a golf club, thinking about a chess position, chewing on your fingernails, eating because you are depressed, composing a poem, etc, causes a certain series of neurons to be engaged. The more often these neurons are engaged, the more myelin they receive from the oligodendrocytes and the more quickly and efficiently your brain can send those same signals the next time. So by practicing your golf swing or eating every time you are depressed, you become really good at whatever you repeat. So will going out to the golf range and hitting balls every day make you good at golf? No. Will meticulously practicing, refining, practicing, refining, every aspect of the game of golf for thousands upon thousands of hours make you good? Obviously. Not everyone can be Tiger Woods. He is unique. But not because he was born good at the game of golf. He is unique because he possessed an off the charts drive to succeed and the means to practice for his entire life. Most people like to go play with their friends, go to school, deal with the everyday struggles of life. For a kid to become Tiger Woods it would have to be his entire life. And his parents entire life. It would take money, expert coaching, the right facilities and equipment, and complete indifference to many aspects of a persons development and normal lifestyle choices. Of course not everyone can be Tiger Woods, but notice how none of the things I said were necessary were a certain set of genes. I don't find the biological aspect of talent acquisition to be all that exciting with all the empirical evidence out there that shows that all world class talents underwent thousands of hours of extremely high level practice (constant expert feedback and a motivation and drive to be the best, along with the financial and geographical means to achieve those desires). The way many of the people are posting in this thread you are creating a strawman argument where by claiming that practice is the path to being world class that means "oh its so easy anyone can be Tiger Woods." That is not the argument at all. I also frankly don't understand why people have resorted to sarcastic tones and needlessly hostile attacks against my opinion.

You know Bruce Harmon is his swing coach, right?

Yeah and most of those people didn't practice anywhere near as much as Tiger Woods. There are also thousands upon thousands of people who took up chess at the age of 8 just like Bobby Fisher and probably played a lot when they were younger. Perhaps they even had dreams of being a grand master. But what didn't they have? They lacked what Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Bobby Fisher all had. The obsessive, pathological drive to be the best and to win. That drive made them spend hours and hours and hours learning their craft and becoming the best. Basically, MOST of those people that didn't make it merely didn't try hard enough.

It isn't about age at all. Its about the amount of time they spent practicing. And choosing as your cut-off the best ~250 golfers amid hundreds of thousands that play the game and saying if you can't make it to the top 250 or whatever that proves that your weren't "born" talented because you spent 10k hours practicing but weren't good enough is absurd. If you had someone spend 10k hours practicing golf and they weren't any good at all you might have an argument. But spending 10k hours and being "only" the 500th best in the world and thus not making the PGA tour does little to support your view.

How much do you think being tall affects golf? Like what specific genetic qualities do you think makes a world class golfer a world class golfer? I am curious what about human evolution makes you think people who are good at golf would be selected through survival of the fittest.

I think if you took a child and started him at golf the age that Tiger started and he practiced hard and spent as much time at the game as Tiger and had the personality to stick with it, then yes, I do. I think you see it every day. Every golfer on the PGA tour has spent their life learning the game. Every chess master, concert pianist, etc etc has spent hours and hours and hours learning. What does that tell you? No one in the history of the world has been born an expert at anything. I'll add that, you have made the implication that I believe this idea that there is no such thing as natural talent because I have this hope that everything should be fair. I'll say I think you are missing the actual psychological bias. I think people believe that there is such a thing as a natural talent because it is a form of self handicapping. If people believe that talent is born not made, it makes it easier to accept their own failure or inability to apply themselves. If everyone understood that through hard work they could be good at something, it would mean they didn't have an excuse to be medicore.

Not really. I gave a list of things that are unchangeable. It is a strawman to say that because there are things that are unchangeable that all things are unchangeable. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Monkeys and parrots don't have the capability to learn the way we do. So no, they would not be able to compose music like a human can. You state this like its a fact, but it is obviously an opinion. You are entitled to it, but I think it is wrong. I do agree that hand eye coordination is something you learn and can practice. Someone who has spent many hours practicing hand eye coordination will have a leg up on another person who has no practice with their hand eye coordination if they are both trying to learn a skill that requires hand eye coordination. This is often coloquially referred to as "skill transfer." If i take football and SLIGHTLY change the rules, or the shape of the ball, the number of players on the field, etc, would Tom Brady have to start at square one and suddenly be on equal footing with random Joe? No, obviously not. His years of learning football will easily transfer to this new game. So if you have a baseball player who has spent years and years training his hand eye coordination to hit a moving pitch and ask him to use a smaller club and hit a smaller ball that isn't moving will he have a leg up on someone with no prior experience? Of course. But its not because he is a "born athlete," its because he there is skill transfer between something has already spent hours and hours practicing. I think a lot of people confuse being a "born athlete" with someone who has just practiced hand eye coordination. If you want to say that Dan has no prior experience with other hand-eye-coordination related activities and so will be behind on golf I might agree with you. But he wasn't BORN that way. I guess your point here is that rhythm and timing are inborn? You think Tiger Woods was born with the ability to time his swing? All those hours and hours and hours of practice he spent to develop timing and rhythm and coordination he actually didn't need to because he was born with that ability already?

There is no doubt that there are many things you can't improve. The famous expression "can't teach height." Of course your genes make certain characteristics set in stone. Height is one, eye color, skin color, gender, etc. The two for sports that I think are most important are height, as well as the ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscle fibers in your body (the ratio is more or less fixed, but obviously you can increase muscle mass). Both of these help in sports, more in some than in others. In basketball height is very important. In sprinting, football, etc, a high ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch is important. However, things like coordination, technique, awareness, reading defenses, reading greens, shooting a basketball, analyzing a chess position, playing the piano, etc, are all learned abilities. No one honestly things the human genome comes hard coded with instructions on how to succeed at completely novel, man-made endeavors like golf, do they?

I won't pretend to be an expert on Greg Norman. What I do know is that his Mom was a pretty good golfer so he was around the game most of his childhood and I'm pretty sure he caddied for her. The fact that he started "late" (15 years old) does nothing to contradict anything I have said, and thus requires no explanation. As to the assertion that he he became scratch is fairly short order I would refer you to my post regarding people's misunderstanding between hours of golf played versus years. It may have only taken him 2 or 3 years to become scratch, but I have no idea how much time during those years he spent playing golf. I also am not ready to say he had no experience playing before he apparently started buckling down at the age of 15.