A few months ago I began reading posts on THE DAN PLAN, where a fella is putting in 10,000 hours of practise to have a crack at playing professional golf. I follow his blog on line and it was interesting to read a recent post where he played a social round with a friend (single figure golfer) for lunch and won for the first time. It was a rare thing to read that Dan felt a little bad about winning and taking the prize from a friend. He is still only using short irons as his plan prescribes and doing well enough. For some one that is targeting playing professionally the reaction to his first win and how he felt will soon change, In fact it must, I wonder what the plan prescribes for, when does Dan start playing competitive golf? A commentator during the US Open at Congressional remarked yesterday the difference between current golfers who practise the game more than playing it, as he and his peers did and how it affects a golfers game play.
The 10,000 hours figure caught my eye in another blogger’s writings who is trying to achieve a Professional Golf standard as well. This time it was explained why that was the number of hours selected. Specifically for this golfer it was from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The following comments are from this review of the book at http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/malcolm-gladwell%E2%80%99s-new-book-outliers-and-the-10000-hour-rule/
“Gladwell’s gift as a writer is not for justification and proof of his claims. What Gladwell does have is an extraordinary gift to use stories to explain abstract ideas in a way that is vivid and memorable, a way that brings those abstract ideas quickly to mind at later need. This shamanic gift is dangerous, for if you read his books credulously, it leaves you open to believing ideas that may be false. It’s also incredibly valuable, for what you learn you internalize deeply. In my opinion, this more than makes up for whatever Gladwell’s books lack in rigorous justification.
I say all this so you know what to expect from Gladwell’s new book, Outliers: The Story of Success.Outliers is a vivid and memorable exploration of a single question: what makes some individuals so successful? It’s not a book that lends itself to a brief summary, for to summarize is to lose the essence of the stories which make it an enjoyable and memorable read. For this reason, I won’t review the book here, beyond saying that I strongly recommend the book, with the caveats above: read sceptically, and check the original literature when in doubt!”
The weather today is not encouraging to play golf and in all fairness my practise this week has been good and a rest could even be of benefit. I want to play because I want to have a competitive round of golf against a field. That is a driving force in the enjoyment of the game for me. On Friday the Chicken Run was one of the worst nine hole scores I have had, 9 stableford points and it was great fun. A lot of stirring, sledging and risk taking shots combined to make it a great round. Playing off 10 (actual hcp is 14) the Chook Run is a competitive round that has the bonus of being able to get fun out of a crap score, and a good scores gives experience playing to a hcp that is far beyond my current ability.
Stroke round today and following the last two rounds of 82 and 82 getting out and having a crack to get to 13 is a priority at the minute for my golf. The weather is a minor concern when it comes to getting on the track and chasing the dream. Thankyou for your time and attention, “Hit ‘em straight all” Geoff
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