Comments on: Goal Guru Stuart Hamilton breaks down The Dan Plan’s goals

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 03:38:00 +0000

Hi Stuart,
Sounds like Dan has read a couple if my posts, even though he has never actually replied.
One of my points was that by working in reverse, with a defined end point and reverse time line, Dan will ultimately achieve more…glad to see you’ve followed my advice.
But a big flaw in the plan is that the “hours” per year are going to increase as Dan starts playing full time tournament golf, particularly if he wishes to practice heavily between tournaments. On top of that, the PGA tour GIR average doesn’t sound that high but the course set ups are much harder.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:44:00 +0000

Very good and tough question Charlie – My friend, John, after reading the blog mentioned that on his course there are players at 4 to 6 below scratch that failed to make it big on tours. He cited the particular example of a former VA state champion who played on the South African Tour but now works in Finance. John mentions; “Hell of a player, and could go out and shoot 67 in his sleep”. So is that enough that Dan can shot 67? Not completely, although averaging 67 is a central part of the current approach, and Dan will continue to work on every aspect to try to ensure he is well rounded in fitness, mental toughness, and game strategy (shot selection, course management, etc.). In a transformation, we need to know where we are and where we need to be. We don’t have the metrics yet so currently it would just be punditry to forecast whether Dan will make it onto Tour. Once we have some tournament results from 2014, we can do a proper gap analysis and plan the actions to bridge any gap.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:23:00 +0000

Richard – Thanks for posting. If Dan’s metrics are not being reached and we need to try something new, we will remember this post as a possible idea. As long as we can measure it, we can try to improve it.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:21:00 +0000

Brian – It’s definitely tough to find the ideal number. If Dan were playing every day, we could sample over 20 rounds since his form from 3 weeks ago would not be markedly different from the present day, but with Dan playing 9 times a month right now, sampling over 10 is probably the common sense limit for this part of the program – we probably should increase when Dan’s rate of transformation is slowing. I think the team (including this forum) can help guide some of the approach when we reach new milestones, especially when some issues appear.

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:36:00 +0000

Dan’s level of commitment is phenomenal! I am currently 26, with a 15 handicap and am pursuing a similar project to Dan, although I am not proving/disaproving the 10,000 hour theory in the way that he is. I am out to prove that no matter how unrealistic, impossible or seemingly unobtainable people may say your dreams are, NO dream is impossible. I have committed every fibre of my being to achieving my dream of playing professional golf and Dan has really set a benchmark in terms of showing what sort of levels of planning, commitment and perseverance are required to achieve our dreams/goals. I think Dan is to be commended for his pursuit and I have no doubt he will succeed. I have a fair bit more work to do than he does, but hopefully one day we will play on tour together. People like Dan show others that they too can achieve anything, if they want it bad enough. There is no reason that we should accept a life that is not the life we dream of!

Dan, Stuart, and everyone involved in The Dan Plan, I wish you continued success and thank you all for proving that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Brad (@PursueThatDream)

By: Richard Chen

Richard Chen — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:50:00 +0000

“Playing Lessons” are fairly traditional for serious students, and playing lessons may be an additional goal.

Hole-by-hole play descriptions, like in the last blog, can be similar to “playing lessons” in that these detail descriptions allow us readers to “observe” the playing. For example, the latest video (from two blogs back) shows the 7-iron is swung back to parallel like for a driver, which is too far back for a mid to short iron according to almost all traditional considerations. In the last hole-by-hole descriptions, several 7-iron shots were somewhat off in terms of club face angle at impact early in the round.

In the front nine, the drives were fairly straight, or straight enough to be kept in the fairway. In the back nine, there appeared to be a pushing spell. If there was an expert observer, or videos, this can be analyzed.

By: Simon Schmid

Simon Schmid — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:17:00 +0000

It’s good that you mention that Dan can improve his stroke faster in the earlier periods of the plan and slower later on, maybe at 1 stroke for 1000 hours. Improvement in almost any skill is a saturation curve, after the slow beginning you improve very quickly, but once you are very good, you improve less and less drastically. I’m not sure why Levitt missed this in his point.
This looks like some great analysis and planning!