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

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

#91

Post by et-al »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #33
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. You could spend $1000 on equipment, get a yearly pass for $2300 right outside Google HQ. $3300 is not in any way "cheap" for the majority of Americans. I like HN, but it's disheartening how many of my peers in tech seem to think that a West Coast programmer's salary is normal.

West Coast programmer who feels adequately compensated here and $3300 ain't cheap for me, either. At $275/month, that's more than my current grocery budget for a single person.

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

#92

Post by olympus »

kdbg wrote: post #81
hkmurakami wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 handicap felt like "expert" but nowhere near master. As a junior golfer I peaked at 2.4 (probably put in around 10,000 hours, though I obviously didn't keep track), and I agree that being scratch felt much much harder than going from 12 to 2, and +2 seemed impossibly far away. Not to mention tour conditions for green speed, rough thickness, and length are much tougher than your average very good golf course. My hom…

I'm not a golfer, I played a bit as a youth so I'm familiar with the basics but that is all. I'm curious how they'd toughen the course just for the tour event? Was it things like changing the size/position of hazards or were there more subtle differences?

I don't know specifics to a pro tour, but here are things I know a golf course can do (has done):

1. Move the holes on the green. It's pretty easy to do, you basically have a giant cookie cutter that cuts a hole out, you drop in a cup and then move the bit you cut out into the old hole. On a well maintained course the seam will be gone in a few days. Most courses have a map of where the possible hole positions and a difficulty measure for each configuration.

2. Watering/not watering greens. If you don't water for a few days, the greens get harder and the ball doesn't slow down very much. On a sloped green this can make a decent landing turn into a gigantic overshoot.

3. Mowing height. A tall rough can suck energy out of your swing. A low green makes the ball roll fast. I'm not sure if they change the height for all areas of the course (especially if you're happy with your greens), but it seems trivial to let the rough get a little higher.

In your comment you mention moving the size/position of hazards. Moving bunkers is a bit of an ordeal and I'm not sure if they would do that for a PGA tour (but I could be wrong). Making the water level higher so the ponds get bigger seems easy enough though.

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

#93

Post by SamReidHughes »

randomdata wrote: post #86
SamReidHughes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to go pro, 10% of income is nothing compared to the time investment. Like, it's an amount. But plenty of people get by on $27K.

That's pre-tax income though. There will be some variation by location and situation, but if we say post-tax is $24k that does not even leave $21k. That is not a lot to live on. And, since we're talking about the median, 50% of the earning population are going to be left with even less than that.

Even then you're talking a cost for something you'd be devoting most of your free time to doing. You don't have to do it in California.

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

#94

Post by SamReidHughes »

olympus wrote: post #92
kdbg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a golfer, I played a bit as a youth so I'm familiar with the basics but that is all. I'm curious how they'd toughen the course just for the tour event? Was it things like changing the size/position of hazards or were there more subtle differences?

I don't know specifics to a pro tour, but here are things I know a golf course can do (has done): 1. Move the holes on the green. It's pretty easy to do, you basically have a giant cookie cutter that cuts a hole out, you drop in a cup and then move the bit you cut out into the old hole. On a well maintained course the seam will be gone in a few days. Most courses have a map of where the possible hole positions and a…

They can narrow the fairways, and with bunkers they'll put extra maintenance effort to get the sand just right. With the majors they might go a lot further. Courses will also modernize on their own just to be more attractive, for example Royal St. George's made some big changes to get the Open back.

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

#95

Post by gbuk2013 »

plinkplonk wrote: post #43
maxxxxx wrote: post #35

I sort of did a similar experiment from 15-35 with boxing. Trained a lot and became pretty competent. But to get to the top hard work is not enough. You also need talent. There are people in the gym that had speed and strength without any training that I couldn't reach with daily hard training. But I think doing this was probably still the best thing I did in my life. Doing something that seems out of reach and then…

I'm on the verge of attempting something like this in Tai Chi. I'm pretty sure I have only moderate (if any) talent, and age is against me as well, but I plan to give this an all out try. Great comment. Directly spoke to me. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

I hope you do :) I hope you also get to practice the real deal, with the real Chi (and the Chuan) ;)

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

#96

Post by allcentury »

mmel wrote: post #27

>“We [talked] about the idea of quitting everything to pursue something single-mindedly and whole-heartedly,” McLaughlin recounts. “Did you need talent or was it all about hard work?” Why not apply that mindset to commercial photography, the field he was already in?

The article said he felt indifferent about his previous and current careers.

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

#97

Post by icelancer »

davidreiss wrote: post #55
efferifick wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point of the parent post. He is not stating that the 10,000 rule will make you a jack of all trades. He is saying that he was able to cut down the "10,000" hours to less because of his transferable skills. S/he might not be an expert in these transferable skills, but s/he might be an expert in his business which is sports science.

> He is not stating that the 10,000 rule will make you a jack of all trades. But that's not what he described. > S/he might not be an expert in these transferable skills, but s/he might be an expert in his business which is sports science. Sure. We all have transferable skills. I don't think the 10000 hour rule meant that you start off with a blank slate and went from the basics of learning language, mathematics, etc…

I am an expert in my field now. It is indisputable. It took me less than 10,000 hours because of the other work I did.

You are indeed missing the point.

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

#98

Post by icelancer »

hyperbovine wrote: post #60
icelancer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The average person isn't able to spend ~7 hours a day, every day for 4 years, on a non-salaried activity. I basically did this over 6 years, 3-5 hours per day on a non-earning activity to eventually launch the business I now run. In the last 3 years I've averaged 60-70 hours per week at work, only recently earning close to my last salary (about 65% as of last check) as a Data Scientist. It's doable enough. Just very…

Of course it's doable if your aim is to acquire skills and enter a high-paying profession that already employs millions of people. Your opportunity cost all along the the way is lower than if you were on some quixotic bid to join the PGA.

It is arguable that my job was about equal in viability to either becoming a PGA pro or a pro golf instructor along the way.

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

#99

Post by icelancer »

HenryTheHorse wrote: post #56
icelancer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I really do accept it. :) This is how I like to think about my journey, stolen directly from the link I posted in these comments from Lyle McDonald (perhaps without the DEGREE of acerbic attitude...): "Quick note: I’m turning off comments for this series of posts. The first reason is so I don’t have to delete the invariable trolling. The second is that I’m also not interested in atta boys or whatever. I sp…

> As it gets tougher, I get better at churning and slogging and fighting. Can you please elaborate on that point? How did you get better at that skill? Was it acceptance? Something else?

As far as I can tell, I got better at it due to growing up in adverse conditions. Nothing terrible, but my family never had it 100% easy, grew up in the inner-city, was working since 14 years of age, full-time at 17 while taking community college classes and opting out of SR year of HS.

I really don't mean to turn it into a classist meme or anything, but working is just in my blood and my family's blood. The more you do anything, the better you get at it. Work under adverse conditions defines my life from 17-25 years old, so I got good at it.

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

#100

Post by plinkplonk »

gbuk2013 wrote: post #95
plinkplonk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the verge of attempting something like this in Tai Chi. I'm pretty sure I have only moderate (if any) talent, and age is against me as well, but I plan to give this an all out try. Great comment. Directly spoke to me. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

I hope you do :) I hope you also get to practice the real deal, with the real Chi (and the Chuan) ;)

ha! I know exactly what you speak of (chi/chuan)

I practice a 'non fluff' variant, emphasizing lots of 'real world testing' against uncooperative opponents ;-)

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