I think it really has become a guy quit his job to try another lousy job.

I don't get any feeling that he is even inspired to make golf his career. Since this was certainly about the journey and not the destination (which I get), there has been so little updates to his website and a complete lack of delivering of any details.

He should have a complete schedule to summer tournaments from the US-Am to the US Mid-Am.

So where does this go from here? Does he even get to the 10,000 hours and does it matter?

Yea I don't get why he didn't enter a bunch of summer stuff. Even if it was just his state am and mid am

A reason may be that it would demonstrate that he is a mediocre golfer.

If he was serious about this 'experiment', all he would be doing is playing tournament golf.

He is in a catch-22. He needs to raise money to keep his lifestyle going, but if he starts shooting 80s all the time in tournaments, he may lose out on funding.

Bottom line was that he should never have commenced this 10,000 hours without able to fully fund it on his own. He didn't have adequate savings and relying on others to fund his adventure was fraught with risk.

He has done a horrible job updating stats too.

Yeah you are probably correct. The few things I read on him made it seem like he thought he would get add money right away and free roll it all. That didn't happen since he doesn't have tits so he is probably over it.

What would you guys even consider natural talent is for golf? Reading greens, soft hands, consistent swing? Pretty sure talent would just revolve around athletic ability and the ability to be a quick learner with a great memory, (pretty much the same as every other sport) after that it all comes down to practice. I would say if you get angry easy you might not excel at golf, but that never seemed to stop Tiger.

When you see it, you know it.

But overall, it comprises of eye/hand coordination with athleticism as an added bonus, but not requirement. 100x easier to learn young.

The outliers who become experts at post 20 years old get good really fast.

Dan isn't one of those. He would be so much better at this point in time.

So what should he do now? I don't know what the point is of "documenting" 4,000 more hours.

He did an admiral job of self-promotion.

He's developing back problems which will allow him to bow out of this gracefully..

Down to a 9.2 but I am do for a total disaster round sometime soon.

referencing the "what skills would you consider essential"? (paraphrase).

i was thinking of this recently:

you do wonder what someone like colt knost has that makes him so good. probably great hand-eye and very strong wrists.

golf and other sports like hockey are different from alot of other sports. seems like you watch it and think maybe i could do that with a ton of practice/work.

but watch jj watts or adrian wilson doing box jumps (or gymnasts doing their thing) and i think you would NEVER ask whether you could do that. or a defensive tackle (who doesn't get drafted) doing a standing back flip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu7W71aUr5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0gsgyY_QW0

sorry for the unformattted links... but very few would think they could do that.... but golf/hockey/bowling/nascar i would think many think they might be able to do it because the skillset isn't really obvious.

before i get pounced on for hockey i know so many guys who played elite hockey to age 15 or so who think they could maybe have got to the NHL..... i think basketball (for instance) is different as someone's superior play becomes obvious very very fast (must more continuously scored game).

i would also add that someone like rory mac probably has freakishly fast hips but again it's not obvious from human eye and it doesn't seem that likely from looking at him (someone like dustin johnson it's alot more obvioius)

I don't see him bowing out as much as just finding excuses not to play tournaments. Those are the only scores that count. His "injury" will allow him to accumulate hours without having to show the public anything. He can write whatever score and hours he wants.

You can weight train for strong wrists and hand eye is something that only gets better with practice, easiest to develop at a young age though.

I swear if Dustin JOhnson had a really good caddie he would win every tournament, but if his brother is anywhere near as dumb as him he is severely handicapping himself, but he probably doesn't want to listen to anyone

This guy is in the Sky Sports studio at the US Open right now telling his story!

Mentioned his h/c was high 3 atm and that he had done 6000 hours up to now.

His ambition is to make the cut in a PGA event.

Ha came to post this . Reckons he has 6000 hours left!?

I must have misheard that then - I don't think it really matters though!

Oh wait - Monty also just said Dan had done 6000 hours.

I think he then said Dan had done more practice than he had done in his lifetime probably lol!

My ambition is to hook up with a Playboy Playmate less than half my age.

And I've got a better chance at achieving my ambition than he does!

BO

This weekend is our club championship.

My h/c is currently 17 (was 10 for a week about 6 years ago) and I think I have more chance of making the last 8 for the matchplay than he has of ever getting a chance (i.e being in there) of making the cut at a PGA event.

And he wouldn't have much chance of winning at our club either lol!

Has he even tried to qualify for his city/state ams or mid ams and if that goes well US AM/MidAM

He's going to do this Michelle Wie style and go straight to the PGA Tour.

Does anybody have any knowledge into progress on Dan's challenge? I got a wild hair today and decided to look on his website for an update, but the most recent activity appears to be this time last year(2015). I didn't see anything saying his challenge was suspended either. I thought that the forums may have more insight as this is the first place I saw his challenge mentioned.

He has been low singles forever and I don't think has done any tournaments.

You mean to say he isn't playing in the Masters?

This was a marketing gimmick. This didn't prove or disprove anything about golf or 10,000 hours. This was one person utilizing the power of the Internet to garner minor attention. And it was a minor success.

It was misleading from the beginning in that he quit a "job" and had enough money to get to the magical 10,000 hour mark. He was a freelance photographer and had to rely on donations immediately.

I think we all wished he played more tournaments, but he went out of his way to avoid playing in any real form of competition. Which is the best way to get better. Yes, he may have to show that he shoots in the 90s or 100s, but so what. That is part of the 10,000-hour journey in golf.

The Freakonomics blog got it right when they said he should have taken advantage of the attention he was garnering early on. His journey was particularly lame in that he spent his first 2000 hours putting. And also that he didn't even have the funds to pay for the membership to his course.

Those responses seem to be rooted in logic. I had deceived myself into thinking that this task was more forthright and the challenge attainable. It just seems like he went to pretty good lengths to follow through with his challenge, pretty consistently updating his webpage for 4+ years, and then go radio silent.

Agreed on the need to play tournaments to decipher his skill level. Especially considering the fact that his goal was to compete against other golfers for a tour card. There is little to no substitute for competition in improving one's game.

He continues to deceive people intentionally mis-stating his true handicap/abilities.

I would think he has some moral and ethical duty to update his early sponsors.

He should also remove his donate button from his webpage. Quite disingenuous to accept funds since he is not playing golf anymore (or at least reporting it).

He received some minor press. Besides that, I don't know what he accomplished or what others could possibly learn from this.

If someone did this right it would be interesting. As soon as you get below 7 or whatever your city is start playing city tournaments, then state then mid am qualifiers. That would be interesting, not what you shoot alone, and this is coming from someone who plays a ton of golf alone.