The Dan plan

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Anybody ever read his blog? He's past the 5000 hour mark recenlty and is doing pretty good. HDCP is 3.3 and he has shot a sub par round. 5000 hours to go, I wonder where he'll be ?

it's http://thedanplan.com/ btw
 
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Is it just me, if you look on his handicap history on the statistics tab on the link, it show his handicap increases by way more then 0.1 on several occasions. Is this just something from over the water as I thought it was max 0.1 increase for a bad round

Working the drops out as they are with a max 0.1 increase, his handicap should be +.5

But then its prob based on the sliding scale which I have no idea about
 
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stevelev said:
Is it just me, if you look on his handicap history on the statistics tab on the link, it show his handicap increases by way more then 0.1 on several occasions. Is this just something from over the water as I thought it was max 0.1 increase for a bad round

Working the drops out as they are with a max 0.1 increase, his handicap should be +.5

But then its prob based on the sliding scale which I have no idea about
Click to expand...

Completely different method of working out handicap, so no 0.1s. And it's an Index, not a handicap - as that changes according to the course.

It's 96% of Average of 10 best, from last 20, Adjusted Differentials!

So a 'rolling average' - though calculated on 1st and 15th of each month..

You didn't really want to know that did you!
 
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guest100718 said:
It will be interesting to see where he is at in a few years though. + handicap maybe?
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I know this is an oldish thread but just stumbled across it. I'm not sure where he'll be if I'm honest. Would be great if he could do it but it's tough to really tell how he's doing and there's a fair amount of schepticism out there if you read outside newspaper/magazine articles etc. I kind of thought this was down to jealousy - what a great project to be able to do - but it goes a bit deeper than that.


For those unfamiliar, the concept is more or less talent is unimportant, if you put in 10,000 hours of practice into almost anything you'll become an expert. In Dan's case his aim is the PGA Tour. The thing is the guy who came up with the theory in the first place specifically said it doesn't apply to sports.

Anyway, I've looked into the plan for a while and think Dan himself seems like a pretty nice bloke. The thing is, while you can 'track' progress on the handicap stats etc it's really tough to tell where he's going. Here's an example:

Towards the beginning of September his handicap was 5.3, it's now 3.1 . Now the USGA handicap system works differently and is normally a tad more forgiving than ours. It also looks at all rounds, not just comp rounds which ours would with him being cat 1. But if you look at the course ratings (roughly comparable to SSS for cat 1) for every course and tee box played since then, as well as the scores shot which you can pull off his blog and Golfshot, under our system his handicap has gone from 5.3 to 5.4 over the period. Put another way it's only half a shot lower than he was in July 2012.

Additionally someone looked at his scores in 'tournaments' a while back and there was, on average, an 11 shot difference between tournament scores and casual scores, all of which count under the USGA handicapping system.

Now I'm not in anyway saying that he's not posting scores into the handicap system correctly, it's just that if you look at all the scores he's shooting, on average, he's about 7.5 over what we would term SSS mostly on his home course right now and that's after 4 years(ish) of playing golf full time.

It's tough to see why he's not improving faster as his blog doesn't really focus on how he's going about it on a daily basis, it's more general, but I'd say he needs to have a serious change of focus away from the media side of his endeavour if he wants to make progress. A few people have done what he's trying to do - come to golf late and ended up playing on tour - but none have chosen to do do it in the 'lime light'. Like I said, hope he works it out though, seems like a nice chap.
 
Nosevi said:
I know this is an oldish thread but just stumbled across it. I'm not sure where he'll be if I'm honest. Would be great if he could do it but it's tough to really tell how he's doing and there's a fair amount of schepticism out there if you read outside newspaper/magazine articles etc. I kind of thought this was down to jealousy - what a great project to be able to do - but it goes a bit deeper than that.


For those unfamiliar, the concept is more or less talent is unimportant, if you put in 10,000 hours of practice into almost anything you'll become an expert. In Dan's case his aim is the PGA Tour. The thing is the guy who came up with the theory in the first place specifically said it doesn't apply to sports.

Anyway, I've looked into the plan for a while and think Dan himself seems like a pretty nice bloke. The thing is, while you can 'track' progress on the handicap stats etc it's really tough to tell where he's going. Here's an example:

Towards the beginning of September his handicap was 5.3, it's now 3.1 . Now the USGA handicap system works differently and is normally a tad more forgiving than ours. It also looks at all rounds, not just comp rounds which ours would with him being cat 1. But if you look at the course ratings (roughly comparable to SSS for cat 1) for every course and tee box played since then, as well as the scores shot which you can pull off his blog and Golfshot, under our system his handicap has gone from 5.3 to 5.4 over the period. Put another way it's only half a shot lower than he was in July 2012.

Additionally someone looked at his scores in 'tournaments' a while back and there was, on average, an 11 shot difference between tournament scores and casual scores, all of which count under the USGA handicapping system.

Now I'm not in anyway saying that he's not posting scores into the handicap system correctly, it's just that if you look at all the scores he's shooting, on average, he's about 7.5 over what we would term SSS mostly on his home course right now and that's after 4 years(ish) of playing golf full time.

It's tough to see why he's not improving faster as his blog doesn't really focus on how he's going about it on a daily basis, it's more general, but I'd say he needs to have a serious change of focus away from the media side of his endeavour if he wants to make progress. A few people have done what he's trying to do - come to golf late and ended up playing on tour - but none have chosen to do do it in the 'lime light'. Like I said, hope he works it out though, seems like a nice chap.
Click to expand...

I guess he needs to be in the spotlight in order to get sponsorship etc as it cant be cheap doing what he is.
 
Nosevi said:
I know this is an oldish thread but just stumbled across it. I'm not sure where he'll be if I'm honest. Would be great if he could do it but it's tough to really tell how he's doing and there's a fair amount of schepticism out there if you read outside newspaper/magazine articles etc. I kind of thought this was down to jealousy - what a great project to be able to do - but it goes a bit deeper than that.


For those unfamiliar, the concept is more or less talent is unimportant, if you put in 10,000 hours of practice into almost anything you'll become an expert. In Dan's case his aim is the PGA Tour. The thing is the guy who came up with the theory in the first place specifically said it doesn't apply to sports.

Anyway, I've looked into the plan for a while and think Dan himself seems like a pretty nice bloke. The thing is, while you can 'track' progress on the handicap stats etc it's really tough to tell where he's going. Here's an example:

Towards the beginning of September his handicap was 5.3, it's now 3.1 . Now the USGA handicap system works differently and is normally a tad more forgiving than ours. It also looks at all rounds, not just comp rounds which ours would with him being cat 1. But if you look at the course ratings (roughly comparable to SSS for cat 1) for every course and tee box played since then, as well as the scores shot which you can pull off his blog and Golfshot, under our system his handicap has gone from 5.3 to 5.4 over the period. Put another way it's only half a shot lower than he was in July 2012.

Additionally someone looked at his scores in 'tournaments' a while back and there was, on average, an 11 shot difference between tournament scores and casual scores, all of which count under the USGA handicapping system.

Now I'm not in anyway saying that he's not posting scores into the handicap system correctly, it's just that if you look at all the scores he's shooting, on average, he's about 7.5 over what we would term SSS mostly on his home course right now and that's after 4 years(ish) of playing golf full time.

It's tough to see why he's not improving faster as his blog doesn't really focus on how he's going about it on a daily basis, it's more general, but I'd say he needs to have a serious change of focus away from the media side of his endeavour if he wants to make progress. A few people have done what he's trying to do - come to golf late and ended up playing on tour - but none have chosen to do do it in the 'lime light'. Like I said, hope he works it out though, seems like a nice chap.
Click to expand...

Surely though, the very point of what he's doing is to be in the limelight? Ultimately, it isn't going to matter whether he achieves his stated objective of reaching the PGA tour, because the real objective is to try something interesting and write about his experience and sell books / himself as a public speaker to support him financially while he does this, and potentially more than that.

He needs to whip up a media storm because that's what gets him sponsorship, freebies etc. and enables him to continue with "The Dan plan".

Ultimately, I don't think he'll make it. However, who here wouldn't want to give up there job and just play, practice and talk about golf all day long?
 
guest100718 said:
I guess he needs to be in the spotlight in order to get sponsorship etc as it cant be cheap doing what he is.
Click to expand...

I get that bit but he isn't getting any. In a recent blog post he said all he's got was a bit of equipment (clubs and the temporary loan of a launch monitor I think) and can't understand why he hasn't got financial backing to help him get to where he wants to go. IMO the reason is pretty simple - he's not yet getting there on the course (although as I say I hope he turns it around). He's also not really giving much of a clue as to why he isn't getting there.

I was chatting to a guy at my course the other day who gets about what Dan has got - he's an amateur and basically gets his clubs provided but nothing else I don't think. He plays off plus 3.

Although I didn't know it at the time I took up golf at about the same time as Dan. I mucked about at it for a couple of years, had a year out for an injury (not golf related) then decided to take it a tad more seriously. Practiced part time for a year or so then got my initial handicap at 5.5 . Shot a good score first time out shortly afterwards to drop it to 5.1 then tore my achilles (also not golf related, I'm just that clumsy) and I'm just back to it only I've got a bit more time to dedicate to it now.

My point is his improvement curve is extremely shallow given playing and practicing full time and many have done it much faster, but I have no idea why that is. I'd like to know, maybe even compare what I did to hit 5.5 from hacker in about a year but having asked if he wanted to trade ideas he didn't seem all that interested. Just seems like the blog and media side is as important if not more so. Kind of where I think he's going wrong. Like I said, nice enough guy though.
 
I've been checking his blog occasionally for the last few months and also noticed that his competition scores are always well over handicap and never sound competitive (mid/high 80s). I've played under a similar handicapping system and definitely think that it is a shot or two easier than ours. Only speculating, but from what I've seen/read of him so far I think he'll end up as a good handicap player but not much more than that. In order to get to the PGA Tour he would need to be well below scratch after his 10,000 hours, and more importantly, scoring competitively in competition on a regular basis.
 
OldMate said:
I've been checking his blog occasionally for the last few months and also noticed that his competition scores are always well over handicap and never sound competitive (mid/high 80s). I've played under a similar handicapping system and definitely think that it is a shot or two easier than ours. Only speculating, but from what I've seen/read of him so far I think he'll end up as a good handicap player but not much more than that. In order to get to the PGA Tour he would need to be well below scratch after his 10,000 hours, and more importantly, scoring competitively in competition on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

I agree with you OldMate. I like the concept and actually he seems like a nice bloke, but I think to secure funding (which is an issue for him now) you've either got to look like you're getting there on merit or be giving the 'golfing community' something in return other than an interesting idea. Just as an example, he struggled off the tee for a bit but looking at his golfshot stats is doing better now. Why? What wasn't working before and what's works now?

I think with a project like this you've got two options. Either open the doors on it and share 'how' you're improving if you want to attract funding, or take option B and go about it in your own way behind closed doors and don't expect any. There's a list of those that have tried option A (author of Paper Tiger, Bring me the head of Sergio Garcia, Dream On to a certain extent) several bloggers...... Not heard of one that succeeded in becoming a relatively successful pro. The Likes of Simon Thornton (went from 7 handicapper in his late 20s to Europro in a couple of years and has won on the European Tour now) did it but not in the spotlight so had to fund it themselves.

Like I say, like the concept and hope he starts turning a corner over the next year.
 
Nosevi said:
I have done, well 30 something anyway, but don't hold your breath waiting for a blog :)
Click to expand...

Agree with you there, when i started in 2006 i gave up my job in the city to move to Inverness. I effectively didn't work ( did some consultancy work) for 5 months and just played golf after a couple of months i was playing less and only 3 times during the week in the local roll ups at most. no weekend golf. its def not all its cracked up to be.
 
I think it will be a challenge to get much further for him from what I've read, but I've got to admit, it's an impressive/driven/stubborn person who can spend a full day on a practice putting green in the rain holing one foot putts. Fair play to him for that alone.
 
Just reading up on this and looking at his countdown to 10,000 page. It seems that each round takes him just 2 hours. 2 rounds over 2 days is just 4 hours. That doesn't seem right to me? His warm up and 18 holes only takes 2 hours?

October 9, 2014: Had two hours of warm up and practice at Riverside before playing in a little Thursday money game with some guys I hadn’t really played with before. One was quite good and it was fun to watch how he played the game. Good group all in all and despite making some very strange swings that produced 3 lost balls I had some great holes and shots. My body was a bit tired from the 36 yesterday. 4,391 remain. Random Stat: shot an 83 from the blues, not a good day considering i was 38 at the turn and I usually play the back quite well.

October 8: Played with a group that I had never joined before early in the morning and hit it very well. Decided to work on stuff on the range for a bit and then go out and play another 18. By the end my swing was getting a little tired as the 36 with an hour of range in the middle after a lot of balls yesterday was quite the good little epic 24 hours. 4,395 remain. Random Stat: shot a 74 in the morning round and then played multiple balls in the afternoon.

October 7: Practice day. Spent five hours rotating between hitting balls and short game with almost every single shot being completely different. Really solid work day today out there. 4,400 remain. Random Stat: getting my hands and basically arms out of the swing and letting the big muscles do the magic.
 
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