Updates

I had a conference call with the TrackMan guys this week as well as with a social media expert. I have been wanting to talk with TrackMan for a long time now and am glad that it finally worked out. What it is is a doppler radar based ball and club tracking machine and in all honesty it is simply amazing. It provides so much crucial feedback that I know it would be a huge boon in my practice routine.

The machine measures everything: ball flight, spin rate, club path, trajectories, etc. It provides concrete numbers to the golf swing and allows for precision tweaks to have more meaning on the range. I have used one three times during club fittings around town and every time walk away knowing more about my swing and what I need to change in it down the road to be more Tour-esque.

No matter the pursuit, in order to truly participate in deliberate practice, high quality feedback is necessary. You can learn a lot by watching the ball flight or listening to yourself play a concerto, but having a professionally trained ear or a doppler radar eye watching over you provides a completely different level of understanding. Awareness is knowledge is the ability to improve.

It’s not a sure thing by any means, but I am excited about the possibility of utilizing one and hope that it works out between TrackMan and The Dan Plan. Another fun thing is that there is a “combine” the machine does that scores you on a wide variety of shots and then you can compare your mark to actual Tour pros and anyone else who wants to jump on one and try it out. So, down the road anyone can see exactly where my swing mechanics are and can literally compare theirs to mine. I think this could be a lot of fun. Fingers crossed.

The next call Friday morning was with a social media expert that my production partner wanted me to chat with. He had a few good ideas about how to engage readers and categorize the blog which were all good thoughts and things to keep in mind. However, I just don’t have time for these types of things right now and am finding it hard to keep up with everything. Between practice, maintaining the website, engaging potential sponsors, planning out episodes, writing blogs and figuring out finances, it has been about 2.5 full time jobs over the past two years. I was hoping to have a few of these aspects figured out by now so that I could solely focus on practicing golf, but it’s a learning experience and I have hit a few wrong turns along the way. Learning from our mistakes is the spice of life, though, and it will all be squared away soon. And if it’s not, then so be it; life is too amazing to be worried about stuff like this.

8 Responses to "Updates"

JMM says:

October 8, 2012 at 4:38 pm

my advice would be to be careful with the numbers from trackman.. ball position and set-up affect the swing big time and the numbers can lead you to believe things are wrong with your swing when it is simply your ball position or set up (i.e. club too steep/shallow, closed/open face in-out out-in etc.)
Nicholas says:

October 9, 2012 at 6:10 am

Hi Dan,

From the outside it seems that the blog is going great! What have been the mistakes with social media/in general?
Chris says:

October 9, 2012 at 8:55 am

Hi Dan,

Are you worried that the great amount of ‘off the course’ activities will affect your golf?

How big is your “Dan Plan” team? I would imagine you are so busy, you would need a lot of help?
Josh says:

October 9, 2012 at 3:04 pm

I’ve got two pieces of advice for you Dan.
First, decrease the frequency of this blog.
If you are truly serious about becoming as good a golfer as you can be, then reducing the frequency of these posts has got to be the first change.
Secondly, Richard Chen made a good point about planning. Start with your end-point ie the 10000 hour mark, pick a date when you estimate this to occur and work backwards. Map out a reverse time line with goals/targets along the way and ultimately you’ll achieve a lot more. If you just continue to do 1300 hours per year and see where you go you’ll probably just meander along and ultimately not achieve as much. As Richard alluded to, this has been the model adopted in corporate planning
Paul says:

October 10, 2012 at 1:21 am

Just one thing seeing as you mention “sponsors”. Be very very careful about retaining “amateur status” otherwise you will be seriously limiting the tournaments that you can enter.
Charlie says:

October 10, 2012 at 6:27 am

Josh, I’m guessing that the blog posts are a welcome diversion for Dan and a way of connecting with people in what is by nature an extremely solitary pursuit. Sometimes I agree that Dan invests a little too much time in them — particularly in the hole-by -hole recaps of a tournament round — but overall I’m sympathetic to his interest in sharing. 20-30 minutes of articulating his thoughts a couple of times a week will provide a great record of the journey, whether it becomes a book or a documentary. He himself has stated that as tangible as his goal is, the reality is that he can only control the process — not the outcome. Recording the process here may be central to the experience.

Dan, as for the hole-by-hole accounts, perhaps a podcast would spare you the time and energy you invest in describing tournament rounds, especially as you play more tournaments.
Josh says:

October 10, 2012 at 6:02 pm

Charlie (and Dan), if the goal of the project is to see how good one can get at golf with 10000 hours of deliberate practice, I would suggest you could go further by having a defined end point in mind, with a resevse timeline and goals tied to specific dates.
ie you start with a lofty goal, with specific targets filled in from reverse and ultimately you will achieve more than just simply finding out where it will take you.
Maybe Dan has done this, maybe not. It’s just a suggestion and I think ultimately it is in his interests to do so.
He’s sort of done that by stating he wants to play a PGA tour event but obviously hasn’t factored into the equation that in the run up to that first event he is going to have to do a lot more than 30 hours a week for a long time in order qualify for one. If he starts from that event and works backward with all the 4 round tournaments and web.com tour events he needs to play first, he’ll soon realise he’s only got 4 years left (not 5) until the 10000 hours are up
Brendon says:

October 20, 2012 at 12:24 pm

Track man Practice mode is really cool.

I read a blog post from Justin Rose saying that he was using a mode in track man that gives you a handicap for a certain type of shot. He said he was hitting 185 yard shots and it gave him a handicap of +11 ! Even he thought that was cool.

Anything that leeps you motivated and excited.

Also, keep blogging just as frequently, reflection and introspection are crucial to any learning experience.

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