However, this post in particular highlights some of the blog’s fatal flaws: forcing an end result and not being aware of the dangers of what you are undertaking. In regards to the latter, you compared the journey to mountaineering, saying it was highly unlikely you were hit by an avalanche, but your back injury — or any serious injury from golf — is golf’s version of that avalanche. You did not properly respect the dangers of this undertaking, how hitting as many balls as you did meant you needed to seriously respect the repetitive stress you were putting on your body. Hell, getting the swing mechanics right and learning how to practice properly are critical for playing golf well, as you well knew, but they’re also critical for not getting injured! Swinging correctly is easier on the body than swinging incorrectly is. Learning to practice properly was just as important to staying healthy as it was to hitting the ball better. The back injury IMO was a sign that the practice routine you used and developed was fatally flawed. This was the very core of the Plan itself.

Secondly, you keep trying to force a result of this project, namely inspiring people over what’s possible. That’s like a scientist trying to influence the result of his experiment. It should’ve been more about acknowledging how borderline impossible this entire thing was, but you were going to work as optimally as possible to see what could be accomplished. You know full well most individuals cannot make the PGA Tour after a certain age. They’re too old, weak, tight, etc. Your window at age 30 was just barely still cracked open, but anyone older and weaker than you had zero shot. Forcing some narrative that anything is possible was flawed from the beginning, and that needed to be changed as you became more and more knowledgeable about the game of golf itself*. At some point, you should’ve taken what you had learned and told people, hey, this isn’t possible for everybody, but you CAN improve if you work hard and smart.

And hey, there probably is someone out there who can pick the game up at 30 and make a single tour start. Money, luck**, plus health/fitness play a huge role here in getting there once you cross into adulthood, but it’s probably possible there are people out there who could do it.

* An example of spending some time rerouting your plan could’ve been writing in great detail about how you think starting the game of golf should work. You know you should’ve been getting driver lessons much earlier in the journey and that the time you spent one foot putting was a waste.

I love the idea of making a beginner learn putting and short game first though because golf is so overwhelming. Putting and short game practice is also relatively easy on the body and can be practiced safely.

** Luck in this regard would be finding the right golf instructors early and often in the journey. It’s massively critical to get the fix to a swing flaw as soon as possible, and I’m sure if you had a million people do their own Dan Plan, a few would be lucky and find the right instruction early on. Luck could also be something like just staying healthy as well.

Raising funding will probably be easier if scores are usually par or better. A few months ago, you shot a round better than par. There have not been any posting of any repeats of scoring better than par since. Would expect to see beating par a couple of times a week by now, although you did post a few better than par scores for 9-hole rounds recently.

Any numbers from the new radar based golf swing analyzer machine to be posted here? From past blogs of using these radar-based golf swing analyzers, they produce amazing numbers of swing measurements like clubface angle, swing path, clubhead speed, accuracy patterns of shots, etc. Of which, the two key parameters of concern at present are probably clubhead swing path, and clubface angle at impact. It appears clubhead speed is adequate to produce better than par scores, so it should not be a primary factor for now. Irons appear to be good to very good, although there have not been many blogs of rounds. The woods, specially the driver, and also the 3-wood, are probably a road-block to the tour at present.

From the past blogs on using the radar-based golf swing analyzers, these machines give a lot of detail measurements of swing parameters, which can be very useful in pinpointing the areas, which are not up to tour player averages. The book “In Search of the Perfect Swing” wrote that the driver clubface angle of tour players deviate less than two degrees from square at impact on average.

Although the radar-based golf swing analyzers measure deviations of swing parameters that are very useful, the machines do not provide solutions on how to improve on the measurements. This means that besides having the machine measurements, good golf instructors may be needed to help in improving the measured deviations.

Over the weekend, while searching in the storage area for some old security lock hardware, I came across, and found a remaining small stash of my Accu-Golf Swing Analyzers. This analyzer is very good at improving driver clubface angle at impact, as it uses the golf ball itself to display the driver clubface angle, which the ball experiences at the moment of impact from the driver clubface. The clubface angles of the 3-wood, or any other woods and irons can be displayed and measured.

Because the golf ball itself is displaying the impact measurements in this system, the analyzer system provides a visual feedback on how to get the clubface squared at impact. The visual feedback gives an intuitive and instinctive feedback on how the hand-eye coordination should work to get the clubface angle square at impact for the driver, and all other clubs. Good and squared clubface angle at impact is at least half the battle in producing accurate and straight driver shots. For the shorter clubs with more clubface loft, squared clubface angle at impact is almost the deciding factor in producing accurate shots, as clubhead swing path is less and less of a factor for the short clubs, specially as the clubhead swing path is improved.

While the radar based machines are in the tens of thousand dollars, this analyzer cost around ten bucks. It has advantages in measuring and displaying clubface angle at impact, but it cannot directly measure clubhead head swing path, which has to be inferred from observing a full flight of the shot.

If you are interested, a free unit of the analyzer can be mailed to you after you have completed using the current analyzer, and if you still need improvements in controlling the driver clubface angle after giving the current analyzer a period of use. The current analyzer should be given a period of use without having a different analyzer to complicate the matters.

Hang in there Dan, Perhaps you will be proven in the last hours of you journey when you are rewarded for all of your work and dedication when “it all comes together” . That’s how true winners are made! Keep going and never look back!

Keep up the great work Dan.

I understand you did not intend to get on a soap box about the lack of interest by golf organizations in helping you out. Still it came across as whining. At this point there have not been any significant achievements that would earn you the financial support from the golfing community. There are a lot of 3-5 handicappers out there. Until you work your way on to the national stage with your golf skill, you won’t garner much attention except as a human interest story.

Having a game that allows you to compete in the US Amateur and other high profile amateur events will get the attention of potential sponsors for your move into the pro ranks.

As for the marketing, how much reach are you really getting with your publicity that would make a company’s marketing department take notice? And what audience is that reach being exposed to? These companies get massive exposure from amateurs who pay out of their own pockets to use and wear the gear, so you really need to make a compelling, quantitative case as to why you can offer more of a return on their dollars.

Your best bet is probably to approach a company like Srixon, Bridgestone, or Lynx that is trying to re-enter or make a bigger splash in the US equipment (not golf ball) market as they may be more open to seeding their branding through a niche presence like yours.

At the very least you could have a series of blog posts reviewing the gear you’ve been using and why you like it. I mean, you’re in Oregon and play virtually every day all year round. You should have been able to do all kinds of all-weather gear reviews with plenty of data on how that gear holds up day in and day out. Zero Restriction? Galvin Green? Sunice? Cross? What gloves work best in the rain and cold? What bags hold up best? What shoes?

This is all just off the top of my head. There should be plenty of opportunities out there for somebody who’s devoted themselves to it, and the fact that you are already 5,000+ hours into it should at least give you some credibility with possible sponsors that you won’t quit at the first bump in the road.