An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
1–10 of 101 posts
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#2I actually randomly looked this guy up months ago after thinking about him and wondering whatever became of his experiment. Sad to see how it ended.
Side note: the Atlantic's shit-tastic anti-ad blocker wouldn't let me in even though I'm a paying subscriber, AND I whitelisted them, so here's the AMP link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#3Since Malcolm Gladwell's book about 10,000 hours of practice, there must be dozens of stories that of people trying to reach that milestone in various pursuits (music, programming, arts). Would love to read a series of those (or maybe that's Gladwell's next book deal).
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#4Since Malcolm Gladwell's book about 10,000 hours of practice, there must be dozens of stories that of people trying to reach that milestone in various pursuits (music, programming, arts). Would love to read a series of those (or maybe that's Gladwell's next book deal).
subsequent studies suggest talent is inherent and motivational self help book have nothing to do with that
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#5I feel like there is some confusion between being successful and being professional. You could deliberately practice a sport or music for ~10,000 and be really damn good, but that doesn't mean you will go pro. That part is about luck and connections. Just because you are very skilled doesn't necessarily mean you will be "spotted" or "discovered" for example.
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#6There's an episode of My Name is Earl based on this premise.
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#7I haven't read Gladwell's book, but I would imagine that time spent practicing is only one of several multipliers. Natural talent and the right coaching at the right time would be too others.
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#8I actually randomly looked this guy up months ago after thinking about him and wondering whatever became of his experiment. Sad to see how it ended. Side note: the Atlantic's shit-tastic anti-ad blocker wouldn't let me in even though I'm a paying subscriber, AND I whitelisted them, so here's the AMP link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
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Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#9I haven't read Gladwell's book, but I would imagine that time spent practicing is only one of several multipliers. Natural talent and the right coaching at the right time would be too others.
Outliers is a fun read, and short. Just as with all Gladwell it's long on idea consistency and short on numerical rigor.
But this is sort of a misinterpretation anyway. The point isn't that 10k hours is enough to make you a master in isolation, it's that masters don't get to be masters before 10k. At the top end of elite practitioners of any art, talent still matters.
Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer
#10Going pro shouldn't be the mark of success on this endeavor. There are a very limited number of seats and very likely pros have committed well more time.
The fact he got to a 2 handicap is evidence you can become a master. Especially since he suffered a physical limitation after about 6k hours.
Talent matters. Age matters. The ability to "get it" faster matters. Access makes you get it faster.
But to go from no game to a 2 handicap is proof extremely hard work pays off. To be in the top 5% of anything makes you elite even if it doesn't make you a pro in an extremely selective occupation. A top-5% engineer can work anywhere and make top money.