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An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

theatlantic.com

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Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#61

Post by jdhawk »

SeanDav wrote: post #40

Absolutely true story: A friend of mine could make a golf ball do just about anything and was a wonder to watch. He was a scratch player or better (I don't recall his exact handicap). On paper, he was professional standard. He could sink 10 foot putts all day long (my hyperbole), but what he could not do was sink a 10-foot putt, when it counted . By his own admission, he just did not have the match temperament to per…

I've played my entire life, and run a handful of people with the exact same game.

Nick Faldo did an interview with Joe Buck where they touched on the subject, and he said without the complete conviction that you're going to sink the putt/make the birdie/win the tournament - you'll never accomplish any of it.

At the Pro level, the mental aspect of the game is more important than the physical.

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#62

Post by SamReidHughes »

pja wrote: post #47
SamReidHughes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golf is cheap. You could spend $1000 on equipment, get a yearly pass for $2300 right outside Google HQ. Spend $50 or is it $100 to join the men's club -- they'd love for you to join -- and get your NCGA handicap. Done. Read the greatest kung fu manual ever written, "Five Lessons" by Ben Hogan, or use some other book. I met one kid that modeled his swing off of YouTube videos and with that got himself to a scratch han…

Golf is cheap. Hmm. You could say much the same about tennis, surely? I suspect the biggest cost at the top level is coaching time: Is it possible to get good enough to match the elite players without access to a coach who is good enough to train players at that level?

It's possible. Bubba Watson did it.

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#64

Post by muzani »

10,000 hours is taken from the book Outliers, but it's not even true mastery. It's said to be the level where Bill Gates entered Harvard. 10,000 hours is more journeyman level than mastery.

The book Mastery goes into much more detail, where it repeats that 10,000 hours is necessary, but there are other components to mastery. Among them is mentorship and creating some form of masterwork.

The pro athletes have gone far past the 10,000 hours mark, but chances are they also had mentors and they've also taken some risks and invented their own styles. Keep practicing.

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#65

Post by jwdunne »

muzani wrote: post #64

10,000 hours is taken from the book Outliers, but it's not even true mastery. It's said to be the level where Bill Gates entered Harvard. 10,000 hours is more journeyman level than mastery. The book Mastery goes into much more detail, where it repeats that 10,000 hours is necessary, but there are other components to mastery. Among them is mentorship and creating some form of masterwork. The pro athletes have gone far…

I think there is a misconception with that number. It originally comes from a paper on deliberate practice from Anders Ericsson.

You could spend 10,000 hours playing golf but it's highly unlikely you have spent 10,000 hours in deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is the relentless drill on areas you need to improve that sit outside your comfort zone. A game of golf, like anything, will include a variety of skills, some comfortable, some not so.

I can't speak for the validity of the research but it's not as simple as doing something for 10,000 hours. The idea is to breakdown everything that you need to do in a golf game, analyse objectively where you stand on each and relentlessly nail the weakest areas.

It's not fun, it's hard and I guess the key thing with talent is that it makes all of that a little bit easier plus a burning passion for the bigger picture (I wonder if that's the source of talent - a burning passion and some other innate advantages)?

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#66

Post by ChuckMcM »

I remember when I found out that Gladwell was a journalist not a scientist. In science, cherry picking your data is malfeasance, and in journalism it is just good story telling. Which made me sad because I'd like to believe that you could 'practice your way' into some amazing profession.

I also followed Dan's progress for the first couple of years. Here was a guy who was putting things to the test in a way that had not been done before. I expect if he writes a book on the topic I would not be the only one who bought it.

So it is with some surprise that I read that Dan didn't know how to 'end it'. He did an amazing thing, and the results weren't what he expected or hoped but they were authentic and that is important. I don't think anyone who followed his story would say "oh he just slacked off for years" or any of that. I would hope he could sit back and evaluate it not as someone who 'failed to make the PGA' but rather as someone who tested this hypothesis of 10K hours and found it wanting. That is an excellent achievement and I hope he can see it that way.

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#69

Post by brycen31 »

People seem to have a maximum skill level that they can attain, and hard training keeps them at that level, but can't get them any higher. If they quit hard training their skills drop quickly.

Children's sports is a process where you have a bunch of kids play and the coach looks to see which kids have an affinity for the sport. It is essentially a weed-out process that eliminates most kids.

Re: An Average Guy Who Spent 6,000 Hours Trying to Be a Professional Golfer

#70

Post by herman_ismael »

I don't know if it's talent, but I do think you have to be born with "something". I used to run marathons, and I trained with other amateurs, in a speed group around a track, led by a University Cross-Country and track coach. He used to say that to run a 3:30, you would have to be fit. To run under a 3:20, you had to be fit and work hard. To go under 3 hours, you'd have to work hard, and be born with "it". I wasn't. But training that hard did help me maximize what I was capable of, which at the end of the day was all I could hope for.
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