The Dan Plan
 

This is a guy from Portland, OR. I heard him on a national radio show recently and again today on a local radio show. The story is amazing and I wish him luck.

A quick version of the story:

A few years ago Dan M. had graduated from college and was unsure of what to do with his future. He had worked for 5 years saving enough money to take a few years off and go to graduate school or something similar. He had heard the theories that someone with 10,000 hours of practice can excel at something. He decided to not go the graduate school route and instead wanted to put the 10,000 hour theory to test.

He had never golfed before but decided to put 10,00 hours of "deliberate practice" into golf and see how far he could go. He got a swing coach to help him, got a local country club to give him playing privileges, and began. He puts in 6 hours of actual practice time per day but says it takes 8-10 hours to get this 6 hours of good practice time in. He counts a round of playing as 2 hours since there is so much walking, standing around, etc...

They decided to start at the hole, and work their way out. For the first 6 months he didn't leave the putting green. After alomst a year he had still not taken a full swing. He didn't hit a driver until about 18 months into his practice. It has been almost 25 months and he is down to a 8.7 GHIN.


A really amazing story and journey. To make it all better he is a really cool guy.

The entire "plan" story: http://www.thedanplan.com/theplan.php
Main website page: http://www.thedanplan.com/

I saw this story on golf channel a while back. Cool story

His swing is looking real good. Looks like his putter is too long for him though, he's gripping way down on that thing.

I like what he's doing and I think he's going about learning the game the right way. I read Outliers and the 10,000 hour theory is an interesting one. I calculated once that if I quit my job and practiced 3 hours a day I'd be ready for the senior tour!

Only thing holding him back is that I think there's a lot to be said for grooving muscle memory when you're young as opposed to in your twenties.

He's being coached by Chris Smith who is the PGA pro at Pumpkin Ridge, (and the world champion speed golf record holder).

or 32 like he is...

Chris Smith is one hell of guy and coach. He has wisdom about the golf swing that'll make your head spin.
I've been following the Dan Plan for a good bit and the guy is making some
serious progress.

ive seen this somewhere on here before i think

I wish the guy the best, I'm in Portland, too. But, while I haven't read the whole 10,000 hours book, there's a big difference in being a 'pro' or scratch and being on the pro tour. If you put in the 10,000 hours, you can probably become a doctor, too. But, that doesn't mean you will becone one of the top sutgeons.

Pretty sure he had a write up in the recent Golf magazine. He's come a long ways and has a long ways to go. Most interesting thing was the sheer numbers of practice strokes, rounds etc that he has accumulated and he is only like 1/4 of the way through his 10,000 hours.

I've actually played with Dan a few times. He started this project at my work, a public course in Portland, before he got privileges to one of the nicer country clubs in the area. He's a really nice guy and his swing sure is getting a lot better, as is his game as a whole. It will be interesting to see how far he gets but I wish him the best.

I follow his blog quite a bit. About once every few weeks I'll catch up on it. Really cool story to follow along with.

I saw this guy on the golf channel a while back and recently read a story about his progress. it's a great story and he is seeing major improvements in the short time he's been golfing. His coach thinks he will be a single digit capper by the end of this summer.

I read about this yesterday, not sure if here on THP or on TGC. I surf golf sites almost exclusively, I need to get a life. http://www.thehackersparadise.com/fo...es/biggrin.png

You can also read about him in the May issue of Golf Magazine.