Thank you for this comment. The hours I count have been decided upon by talking with Dr. K Anders Ericsson himself. He is the one who has done all of the research behing the 10,000 hours theory and I trusted on his consultations for developing the plan. The entire theory is based on the idea that it is 10,000 hours of engaged deliberate practice in the specific field. Breaks do not count towards training time, neither do mental exercises or working out because you are not improving in your golf game during them. It is only the time spent working with the ball that can count. Here is an interesting article about the subject: http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf

I assure you I am not misrepresenting the number of hours spent. I have kept dutiful logs and register every moment of practice.

Thank you,

Dan

I keep it going! No matter what, the PGA Tour is in the books. The real theory is that it takes between 8,000 and 12,000 hours to master a specific field, so I won’t stop at 10,000 because that might be just a hair from the tipping point. The goal is to make the PGA Tour and that’s what I aim to do.

Cheers

Wow, we’re almost exactly the same amount of time in. What’s your website? I’d love to follow along.

Thanks!

Dan

there seems to be a bit of misrepresentation of the time you claim to spend on your “full time job” and the hours you have “worked” up to this point. if you are only strictly recording the exact time that you have hit balls and not included the full amount amount of time you have spent “on the job/course” you misrepresent the time you are investing on this project. for example, you state in this article taking breaks during your practice such that you are practicing 2 hours versus being there for 3 hours due to the breaks help you maintain focus for short periods of time and model the short times used to focus between shots. if you are not including all of this time then you misrepresent the time commitment involved. furthermore, it means you appear to be accomplishing more in fewer hours than it is actually taking you. no one else could duplicate your study because you are not accounting for all of the time you are investing on the course. it is understandable that you wouldn’t include time spent on your blog, interviews, and the such.
that said, even if you took weekends off and two week vacations your “part time job” would equate to less than 27 hours a week or just over 5 hours a day that you spend on this project. when your description of a typical day asserts you spend much more time than this “working,” you are in essence under reporting your work time and in essence accomplishing more in fewer hours despite investing potentially twice as much time. this seems a bit like the golfer who claims to score a 4 even though he took 6 strokes. you are claiming to accomplish something in 3000 hours that actually may have been more like 4500. golf is also about honesty and i am not questioning your honesty or integrity as a person but rather pointing out that your present claims do not appear to match up with what is being reported.
if you were “working” 40 hour weeks and it sounds like you have probably invested more like 60 hours a week granted part of that is on the blog/media side and need not be included. but even at a conservative 40 hours/wk with weekends off and vacation time you should be around 4680 hours. this is a huge difference from what you have reported. in doing so, you will lose credibility and validity upon reaching your 10000 hours when it can easily be argued you invested more like 15000 based on these overly simplified projections. this of course works in your favor when you under report your time commitment, but is it valid? it would be like the computer programmer that only records the time they are actually programming and not the other 20 hours they are in the office doing brainstorming sessions, taking classes, or reading up on new technology or techniques.

as a fellow golfing enthusiast, i still commend you on your endeavor and wish you the best of luck, but i am also calling a penalty stroke for claiming to work a full time job and only reporting part time hours. anything that contributes to your golf game regardless of whether you are hitting a ball or not, whether it is coaching, reviewing video of your swing, getting fit for new clubs, improving your fitness, mental coaching, and the like should have been included to be truly authentic and realistic of your actual “score” (time invested), as they all contribute to your golf game. anything less misrepresents what you are doing and doesn’t fall in line with the spirit of the 10,000 hour rule. this is just my observation based on what i have read on your website and reported in golf magazine. i don’t wish to deter you or come across as critical. only you can only answer whether the ball moved when you grounded your putter and the ball moved. i can only share my observation that something doesn’t look or sound right and it sounds like you just double hit the ball coming out of the rough and only counted one stroke. only you know for sure, but just over 3000 hours reported in 2 years and 16 weeks doesn’t add up on my scorecard. regardless it is your project and your conscience. i just have my doubts whether you will be able to claim 10000 hours is a fair assessment of your time invested when it is all said and done, especially when you could easily be half way there already.