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10,000 hours to be a pro golfer?

RacerDeac said:
What kind of course do you play at where most par golfers can't break 80?
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Raleigh Country Club. If you are a visitor from another course claiming any single digit handicap or scratch, you are considered easy money to most RCC members if you are a playing at RCC. It is a very difficult course, particularly for folks who don't play it often.
 
Read pages 51-57 of this link
http://books.google.com/books?id=_C...&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here's an excert

"Consider the golf-greatness pyramid's base, a wide mass of good players, great players, best ball strikers you have ever witnessed firsthand, the only ace you have ever been accidentally, terrifyingly, matched up with--we'll call him or her The Best Player You Know. Maybe he's your club champion, maybe your neighbor's sixteen-year-old, perhaps it's your boss who has the scorecard from Pebble Beach on the wall and tells all the clients, "Shot 73, couldn't make a damn putt." The real sticks, guys who talk about what they might have done in golf if they steered their life a little differently, if only they took their shot. A two-, three-handicap--maybe even a scratch player. If you watched them hit balls you would weep inside.

And here's the news about The Best Players You Know: They're s***. Scratch is s***. The Best Players You Know simply cannot play. They are the mere masses, golf's faceless proletariat, utterly forgettable. They are little than the wide sprawling base of wannabes on which the pyramid is planted."

It's worth reading the seven or so pages that I linked to above.

Coyne's pyramid, from bottom to top, includes . . .


The Best Players You Know
Club Pros
Stud Amateur
Attached Club Pro
Mini-Tour Philanthropist
Mini-Tour Grinder
Nationwide Earner
PGA Tour Six-Figure Survivor
PGA Tour Player
PGA Tour Superstar
 
I have a buddy who goes mid-low 60s on several very good courses. Heritage Wake Forest, TPC Wakefield, Hasentree, etc.

He was on Miami's golf team and also spent time on the Nationwide Tour. He couldn't hack it on the mini tours. Couldn't make enough money to stay in it.

Still comes out on the weekends and burns up the local courses, but he doesn't even pretend to have the game to go pro.
 
deacfreke2 said:
As kids, we were taught that a "scratch" golfer was anyone with a 0 handicap or one in the minus numbers. I'm thinking that the word "scratch" has taken on the general meaning of someone who regularly breaks 80. At one point, I was a 2 handicap, now not much better than a 9. Still, my friends will introduce me a scratch golfer.

Drives me crazy, especially after a first tee snap hook into the next fairway.
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uh, anyone who considers a scratch golfer to be someone who merely breaks 80 is a joke
 
Baconwfu said:
Read pages 51-57 of this link
http://books.google.com/books?id=_C...&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here's an excert

"Consider the golf-greatness pyramid's base, a wide mass of good players, great players, best ball strikers you have ever witnessed firsthand, the only ace you have ever been accidentally, terrifyingly, matched up with--we'll call him or her The Best Player You Know. Maybe he's your club champion, maybe your neighbor's sixteen-year-old, perhaps it's your boss who has the scorecard from Pebble Beach on the wall and tells all the clients, "Shot 73, couldn't make a damn putt." The real sticks, guys who talk about what they might have done in golf if they steered their life a little differently, if only they took their shot. A two-, three-handicap--maybe even a scratch player. If you watched them hit balls you would weep inside.

And here's the news about The Best Players You Know: They're s***. Scratch is s***. The Best Players You Know simply cannot play. They are the mere masses, golf's faceless proletariat, utterly forgettable. They are little than the wide sprawling base of wannabes on which the pyramid is planted."

It's worth reading the seven or so pages that I linked to above.

Coyne's pyramid, from bottom to top, includes . . .


The Best Players You Know
Club Pros
Stud Amateur
Attached Club Pro
Mini-Tour Philanthropist
Mini-Tour Grinder
Nationwide Earner
PGA Tour Six-Figure Survivor
PGA Tour Player
PGA Tour Superstar
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Just spent a half hour reading this. It's clearly going to ruin my plans today.
 
Several years ago, I got to play a round at my club with Thomas Bjorn. He was in town for what was then the Bellsouth Classic. I don't remember how he came to be at our club, but our pro knew that I worked at home called me and told me to get over there if I wanted to play with him.

Our course is a great track. We've had two local qualifiers for the Bellsouth, a couple of regional level USGA junior events, and we've hosted the Atlanta Amateur Championship twice. Bjorn ate it alive. He birdied the first four holes, hitting the 545 yard par five first with a driver and a three iron. I think he shot 30 on the front nine. Our club has several legitimate scratch players, two of whom played ACC golf. It was like Bjorn was from another planet compared with them. I couldn't believe the sound the ball made when he hit it, even with a wedge, which is what he played into the par fours all day.
 
Played at Old Town with Lee Bedford a couple times and he shot like 31 on the back the first time I played with him. I shot 35 once and I played lights out.
 
Great excerpt from that book to put things in perspective. Talking about 3 guys who all shot -10 (278) at TPC Heron Bay in Q-School.

"At the 1999 PGA Tour Honda Classic at TPC Heron Bay, a score of 278 would have been good enough for second place and $280,000, on stroke behind winner Vijay Singh, and one stroke better than that year's runner-up, Payne Stewart. At the 2003 Qualifying School at TPC Heron Bay, 278 isn't even good enough to make the top twenty. All the young men at ten-under, including that show-off who had opened up with a 64 - they all miss advancing to Stage II by a single shot."

That's just to get to Stage 2.

If you could spend 5 years hitting golf balls and go play on tour, why would anyone go to college? We'd just spend 5 years playing golf and make millions.
 
I played high school golf and the junior circuit growing up. I've probably put in 5-6K hours and used to be a +2. Now I'm more like a 2. If I put in 4,000 more hours, I still would maybe have a .001% chance of making it to the PGA Tour. I do feel like I'd have a decent chance to compete on local tours, maybe even make a couple Nationwide events. This guy has absolutely no shot.
 
Coach O said:
I read Gladwell's book, and my recollection is that it isn't merely the 10,000 hours that makes one an "outlier." It is the innate ability COUPLED with the 10,000 hours that creates the POSSIBILITY of being an outlier.

Example: there are actually lots of people Bill Gates age who had his level of intelligence and interest in computer science. But at that time in history, very, very few had access to computer time. He did, and as such, became an outlier.

Taking a random person and giving them 10,000 hours of something does not create an outlier. It creates a person who has dedicated 10,000 hours to something.
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That's what I took from "Outliers" as well. In addition to Gates, he gave the Beatles as an example. They got their 10,000 hours playing 8 hour sessions at a time in dumps like Hamburg. But they still wouldn't have been the Beatles had they not started with the talent of Lennon and McCartney.
 
Baconwfu said:
Read pages 51-57 of this link
http://books.google.com/books?id=_C...&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here's an excert

"Consider the golf-greatness pyramid's base, a wide mass of good players, great players, best ball strikers you have ever witnessed firsthand, the only ace you have ever been accidentally, terrifyingly, matched up with--we'll call him or her The Best Player You Know. Maybe he's your club champion, maybe your neighbor's sixteen-year-old, perhaps it's your boss who has the scorecard from Pebble Beach on the wall and tells all the clients, "Shot 73, couldn't make a damn putt." The real sticks, guys who talk about what they might have done in golf if they steered their life a little differently, if only they took their shot. A two-, three-handicap--maybe even a scratch player. If you watched them hit balls you would weep inside.

And here's the news about The Best Players You Know: They're s***. Scratch is s***. The Best Players You Know simply cannot play. They are the mere masses, golf's faceless proletariat, utterly forgettable. They are little than the wide sprawling base of wannabes on which the pyramid is planted."

It's worth reading the seven or so pages that I linked to above.

Coyne's pyramid, from bottom to top, includes . . .


The Best Players You Know
Club Pros
Stud Amateur
Attached Club Pro
Mini-Tour Philanthropist
Mini-Tour Grinder
Nationwide Earner
PGA Tour Six-Figure Survivor
PGA Tour Player
PGA Tour Superstar
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Interesting. I was friends with and lived with some of the guys on the golf team when I was at Wake. A) Its amazing how good those guys are and (B) even then you could see/tell a differnce in the guys that were going to make it on tour and those that weren't.
 
WhatUTalkinBout Willis said:
I have a buddy who goes mid-low 60s on several very good courses. Heritage Wake Forest, TPC Wakefield, Hasentree, etc.

He was on Miami's golf team and also spent time on the Nationwide Tour. He couldn't hack it on the mini tours. Couldn't make enough money to stay in it.

Still comes out on the weekends and burns up the local courses, but he doesn't even pretend to have the game to go pro.
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Is it John Finster?
 
Tin Cup said:
Exactly what I thought. Has to be.
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I've been paired with him in qualifiers a couple times, and also got paired up with him in the NC Fourball 2 years ago (Paul Simson was his partner).

He had a nice run about 6 or 7 years ago where you could make a good case that he was the best non-collegiate amateur golfer in the Carolinas.

Super nice guy with loads of game. Only thing I saw that might have been holding him back is that only hit it average distance. Both he and Simson were absolutely lethal around the greens.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I've been paired with him in qualifiers a couple times, and also got paired up with him in the NC Fourball 2 years ago (Paul Simson was his partner).

He had a nice run about 6 or 7 years ago where you could make a good case that he was the best non-collegiate amateur golfer in the Carolinas.

Super nice guy with loads of game. Only thing I saw that might have been holding him back is that only hit it average distance. Both he and Simson were absolutely lethal around the greens.
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I've played with/against Simson several times - he is a "member" at RCC and former club champion, although he doesn't play there often. He would be a very good putter even amongst tour players. Incredible from 20 feet and in.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I've been paired with him in qualifiers a couple times, and also got paired up with him in the NC Fourball 2 years ago (Paul Simson was his partner).

He had a nice run about 6 or 7 years ago where you could make a good case that he was the best non-collegiate amateur golfer in the Carolinas.

Super nice guy with loads of game. Only thing I saw that might have been holding him back is that only hit it average distance. Both he and Simson were absolutely lethal around the greens.
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This is really the thing that has created a huge gap between great amateurs and pros - the Tour has become a bomber's paradise. If you can't hit it 325 in the fairway when you need to, then it is very difficult to compete these days.

I have played the game all my life and 10-15 years ago I was hitting my tee shots basically the same distance as the touring pros (obviously I didn't hit good ones as often and did not hit them as straight). Today I hit my tee shots further than I did then (technology) but now my good drives are 25-50 yards behind the Tour guys.

Oh, and putting is the other great divide - it is crazy how many putts those guys make.
 
I'd go with short game being the single biggest gap between top amateurs and pros.

And I agree with the assessment of Simson's putting. Every putt looks like it has a chance, and he is longer than most senior amateurs out there.

On the subject, the best amateur I've played with in the last few years is Scott Harvey. He has all the tools.
 
I think putting is the biggest divide, tours make so many damn putts it's incredible. I can go out and hit a lot of greens, but I just don't knock it close enough or make enough medium ranged putts for birdies to shoot in the 60's.

I also choke on a lot of 5 footers
 
The elite guys on tour can all bomb it and putt very well. But, every single tour player is a great putter by almost any standard (occasional exception like Sergio, but he may be the best ball striker in the world). There are still a few courses on tour (although dwindling) where the bombers don't have a distinct advantage. This weekend is a perfect example.

The other thing that all great players have is what the book excerpt described as "disdain for par." They can all go low and can keep going lower when they are hot. The only number that seems to get in their head is 59/60 - they start getting close to that and they get tight the way I do if I am about to break 70.

Whether they have that mentality because they are so great (or they are great because they have that mentality) is something that is difficult to figure out.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I'd go with short game being the single biggest gap between top amateurs and pros.

And I agree with the assessment of Simson's putting. Every putt looks like it has a chance, and he is longer than most senior amateurs out there.

On the subject, the best amateur I've played with in the last few years is Scott Harvey. He has all the tools.
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I remember even Annika Sorenstam saying the same thing after she played in those men's events a few years ago. She said the biggest difference she saw between the men's and ladies' game was that the men got up and down from everywhere.

There are weeks on the PGA Tour when the winner makes 100% of his putts from 8 feet and in. Obscene!
 
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