Practicing 2000 hrs (The Dan Plan: a 10,000 hr deliberate practice experiment)

Yes, he's very deliberate about it. IIRC, he has a top coach guiding all of his training, and the plan has been careful working away from the hole. So the first couple hundred hours (!) were all putting and then some chipping, doing careful drill after drill. Finally he can play most of the hole, albeit with only shorter distance clubs so far.

I don't think Dan is planning on becoming a top-10 contender on the PGA, I think he would just like to play a competitive game with them.

I would suggest that anyone who is ranked on the PGA, #652 on up, could be considered an expert in golf.

I hate that people so abuse the term exponential, but putting that aside, you're looking at this wrong. The skill gap between levels is smaller as you progress. The effort to hit the next level may grow drastically, but the acquired skills diminish.

Think about someone who's never played teeing off against a casual golfer. How horribly will they lose, while they struggle with the basics? Now the casual golfer against the serious amateur. How will the casual golfer fare? Now serious amateur vs club pro. And so on. At each stage, the more advanced person has a major advantage, but that advantage decreases as the levels advance.

As someone progresses through the learning process, they go from learning the basics, through competence, and eventually to mastery. During this they initially learn gross skills and finally learn the most delicate refinements. It's this way with every skill. If you had to wager on the underdog in a casual golfer vs club pro face-off or a club pro vs a national pro face-off, who would you pick?

Ergo, if you've learned the game up to a certain skill level -- and then coasted at that skill level for decades -- you're going to need to rewire significantly engrained neural pathways in order to relearn the game and break through your plateau.

It also helps to be able to start young. Not only do you have more time on your hands when you're younger, but you learn more quickly. Your brain is much more plastic in childhood. Interestingly, in most of the "10,000 hours" case studies I've seen, the subject started practicing as a young kid. It's entirely possible that the learning curve is steepened or elongated for people who start as adults. A child might be able to go from beginner to master in 10,000 hours, but an adult might need many times that number of hours.

So at the end of all this, he could end up a magnificent golfer, but still not win any PGA tours because the other golfers there are also magnificent players. I still have high hopes for him, though, and can't wait to see how it ends up!