1,700 hours

And counting. 17 percent. Seems the pace has slowed a hair this past month, but that was mostly due to taking a week in NYC and then having Golf Channel out filming for a few days. Still, I cracked the next 100 hour milestone and am actually feeling pretty good about my game in general today.

I went out and saw Christopher yesterday and am very glad for that lesson. This past week has produced some of the worst golf to date and I had been a bit frustrated as to what was going on with my swing. Just a couple weeks ago I couldn’t miss from within 120 yards and was making crisp contact with pretty much every shot. But, then the golfing gods frowned and the hosel began leading the charge on too many occasions. When I went out Friday with my friend Eric (AKA Country Club, a solid golfer) I honestly had the worse round of my infant career. Nothing was working and I new this was beyond my own fixing abilities.

Christopher watched me swing for about five minutes and saw the problem. During my takeaway I was overly opening the club face making it unnecessarily difficult to bring it back to perpendicular at impact; hence the hosel and pushed shots. It’s always something pretty straight forward and simple, but you can’t always figure it out on your own. Having a coach is a huge time saver.

The goal this week is to make this new “closed” feeling takeaway become my normal feel and to start hitting the ball solidly once again. Also on the books: work on my contact with short chip shots, I’ve started hitting a bit too much grass in front of the ball, not a good habit to have, especially if you want to put some spin on the ball.

14 Responses to "1,700 hours"

Geoff says:

July 5, 2011 at 5:48 pm

In time you will become more aware of the errors you make and be able to correct them. It is a combination of practical knowledge and mental (swing technique and self confidence).
Martin says:

July 6, 2011 at 4:49 am

Having a good coach is important and I think extremely important your plan. How did to go about picking your coach?
dan says:

July 6, 2011 at 8:40 am

Hello Martin,

A good coach is crucial. I found Christopher through a friend of a friend type situation and he has turned out to be a great fit for me. Ours personalities work well together and he is a no-bs kind of guy which is important when your putting everything on hold for 6 years to learn golf.. I lucked into a good coach, but think the most important thing is to find someone you believe can help you.
Taylor Johnson says:

July 6, 2011 at 9:24 am

Awesome and inspirational project here Dan! I randomly found you after googling “becoming a pro golfer” as I share the dream! I’ve listened to Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ and I’m very intrigued by the possibilities. Got my handicap down to 9.6 from 16 early last year.

What would you say your handicap is right now?
Craig says:

July 7, 2011 at 2:55 am

Hi Dan,

Just wondering how you are tracking in relation to any benchmarks you have set for yourself?

All the best.

Regards,
Craig.
Golfer2011 says:

July 8, 2011 at 7:24 am

Hey Dan, I’m in my 30′s and I have less than 180 rounds, less than 1,000 hours put into the game of golf, only 3 hours of lessons, and I’m a 4 handicap.

I have good news with regards to your quest/theory. The good news is that golf is really an easy game. Any 10 handicapper can hit any given shot at any time. However, the reason golf becomes difficult is because you get in your own way. Golf is 90% mental and 10% mental, lol.

While I have no doubt that with your coaches, dedication, time spent, you can become a scratch golfer or better; that is the easy part of your journey. The hard part is going to be when you will compete against other golfers.

I haven’t read all the pages in your blog, but my advice would be to spend time with a sports psychiatrist to get your mental game prepared for tournament golf. Tiger’s dad was a marine and toughened him up for competitive golf. I would suggest spending some time on that as well.

Best of luck!

Golfer2011
Alex Humphrey says:

July 8, 2011 at 8:17 am

It’s amazing to me how much an hour or so with a coach can change everything. Any kind of coach, really. A trained, outside perspective is so valuable!
dan says:

July 8, 2011 at 9:15 am

Hello Taylor,
Glad you found the project! Actually, I don’t have a handicap as of yet because of how we are attacking the learning process of golf. I started putting from a few feet away from the hole and have slowly moved out. Currently, I play from 140 yards and my goal is to regularly shoot a par 3 from anywhere within 140 yards. so, no handicap yet, but will let you know.
dan says:

July 8, 2011 at 9:17 am

Hi Craig,

Hard to say. In the big picture, I thought I would be further along by now, but that was before I had ever golfed so my expectations were a little skewed. Now, we are tracking my progress to make sure that I am consistently getting better and it looks like that is the case. No expectations for when I will have all 14 clubs and start playing in competitions, but if things go as they have that will probably be early next spring. cheers.
dan says:

July 8, 2011 at 9:21 am

Hey golfer 2011,

That’s great that you are a 4 handicap with so little lesson time, guess you have some great proprioception! Stick to it and maybe I’ll see you out on the Tour one day

I agree, the fun/challenging part of the journey will be playing consistently in competitions. This will come with practice, though.

Will definitely be finding a good sports psychiatrist when the day calls for one.

Thanks!
dan says:

July 8, 2011 at 9:21 am

Alex,

Right on, it’s so true. Having good eyes on you can make a world of difference..
Tom says:

July 12, 2011 at 5:25 am

Dude: I don’t want to bum you out but I played with a 16 year old kid the other night. He told me that that he had been playing golf less than a year and had only been out on the course a few times this spring and about 10 times so far this summer. He had spent the winter at a golf training facility taking lessons and analyzing his swing on video with the pros. He went to the facility several days a week after school. My girlfriend and I played 18 holes with this young man. He shot a one over par. He hit several drives over 300 yards during the round. I ran the numbers and he appears to be close to a scratch golfer with about 72 hours of instruction. Doh!
dan says:

July 12, 2011 at 8:30 am

Hi Tom!

No worries, definitely not bumming me out. It anything, that’s a great inspiration story! I can’t compete on the full course yet, due to having 8-iron and shorter, but hopefully when I can I’ll be able to shoot par just like the kid you played with.

Thanks for reading!
Tom says:

July 13, 2011 at 10:42 am

Dan:

I hope you get there. But the part that I think is interesting is the instruction aspect. I am not sure that I agree with the approach to learning your instructor is taking with you but I am fascinated to see where it goes and if it works. This kid belongs to ClubGolf which has an aggressive Juniors program. This seems to be the wave of the future.

Here is a link just in case you are curious:

http://www.clubgolfmd.com/

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