Practice strategy: frequency, not duration

For about 10 years, I enjoyed getting outside, drinking a few with my friends maybe once a month in good weather, and shooting in the low 100s or high 90s. Over the past three years, I really starting making an effort to improve. I tried online videos, lesson, practice, etc., but nothing really seemed to help me figure things out. For a few months last spring/summer, I was even able to make it out to the range about an average of 2-3 times a week, hitting as many as 160 balls at a time. Despite this, I actually felt like I was getting worse. I basically would watch videos online, trying to fix some problems I knew I had (over the top swing path, hitting it fat, inconsistent contact), and then try drills and fixes at the range. I'd just be out there pounding my 7 and 8 iron into the mat over and over. I'd mix it up some, but mostly, I just slammed those two irons into the mat over the top over and over and over.

For Christmas this year, I chipped in with the rest of my family and got my dad a skytrak golf simulator. My parents house is pretty close to my office and I have young kids that enjoy seeing their grandparents, so I'm over there pretty often. Even if its just 20 minutes worth, I try to hit some balls each time I go. Over the last 7 days, I've hit balls on the simulator about 5 times. Twice I played a full course with my dad. Every other time, I just messed around for 20-40 minutes. But the purpose of this post is to tell y'all that the most I've ever improved has been the month and change since Christmas. Some might argue that playing the simulator is better than just hitting the same club over and over, and that may be true. Another factor is that the mat we purchased makes it very easy to tell when you come over the top and hit it fat. You can feel and hear it before you even see the ball flight. I think a less forgiving mat did help me figure some things out, but I don't think it explains my rapid improvement. I think I've improved because I've really been able to keep at it. Even hitting the ball twice a week didn't do it for me, but hitting the ball practically every day has.

I know not everyone can go out and buy a simulator, and even if you can afford it, you need a fair amount of ceiling height and a room more or less dedicated to it. That said, a mat and a net is not out of reach of most people. Knowing what I know now, I would tell myself years ago to buy a mat and a net for the garage/backyard. Just working on getting the ball to start out straight or right of center would have helped me work on my path without going to the range, and with the right mat, you can tell if you hit it fat or made good contact. I really do believe that 20 minutes a day of practice for a couple months would be better than once a week at the range for years. It sure has seemed to be for me.

I take notes at the range, and I remember looking over my notes before hitting at the range and trying to remember what exactly I'd been feeling the week before. I think that was the disconnect. I just couldn't quite pick up where I'd left off. Today, we took the kids over to my parents for ice cream, and I got about 20 minutes in on the simulator. I hit one fat which I knew before I even saw the simulated flight. I'd come over the top a little and pulled it But remembered how I was moving my hips the day before, made a few practice swings, and got things back on track. I just don't think I was able to build on what I learned when I let a week or even days pass between range sessions. I'm not saying don't go to the range. I'm just saying that when you can't hit the range, work on path and contact at home for 20 minutes each night if you really want to fast track your improvement.

If you have actual expectations as a golfer and you're not doing something every single day, I think you're kidding yourself. I really do.

I don't think it's mandatory that somebody hit balls at the range every single day, but if you're not swinging a club somewhere to maintain the flexibility and the feels you've developed, hitting a few chips and/or rolling a few putts on the carpet there's just no way you can keep things in sync.

If you're not doing that you're going to end up using the front nine to find your swing and the back nine convincing yourself to come back and try again the following week, LOL.

You can't get healthy dieting one day a week, no matter how extreme you go about it. It has to be something you're committed to. Golf is the same way. So much of golf is pure timing you can't take days off and expect to have a reliable swing.

It's a bit of both. The goal of practice on the range or at home is to develop a repeatable swing. I like to think of the long sessions as where you're building a swing. The short sessions or mirror work are how you maintain it.

Quite simply I think the session should stop when the focus is gone. The second it becomes ball beating it becomes exercise. Hogan would break up his practice every 20 minutes or so (not sure of the exact time frame) sit back for 5 or 10 minutes and go back at it. Meaningful practice is more effective that mindless practice. If you can do 4 hours and focus the whole time, good for you. If you do better with 7 half hour sessions, that's fine too. Personally....I have 2 days a week and 4 hours each day. 2.5 to 3 hours each day on hitting balls and the rest split between sg and putting. I hit 20 balls or so and break for 3 to 4 minutes then go again. It's worked great for me thus far.

Yeah, it's a tough one if we have a wife, kids, job, etc... I get out and practice about 3 times/week. But, my son loves to join me and that sure helps. Wife is a golfer too....thank goodness...

My advice is really directed at high handicappers or individuals who are trying to actively improve. I golf with a guy on an annual Myrtle Beach trip that picks up his clubs about twice a year (or trip being one of the two times) and shoots in the low 70s (from senior tees). Everyone is different, but I do believe that for people that shoot in the 90s/100s, the primary issues are path, face control, and contact. Those basics need to be figured out create a swing you can build on. When I was going to the range once a week, and even when it was twice a week or more, I would write down what was working, but then when I tried to continue my progress, it's like I was starting over from scratch. At least for me, there is a lot of feel to golf. I still struggle with spinning my hips too hard/too early and getting the club slightly over the plane. When I made progress in the past, I'd wait a few days and often couldn't quite recreate it. When I went weeks, everything was totally lost. Right now, when I'm hitting the ball almost daily, I've been able to make corrections when my swing gets bad, and get back on track. That is new for me, and I think it has everything to do with regular/daily practice.

And again, I'm not saying to avoid the range, or long sessions at the range. I was definitely able to fix my club face control going regularly but not daily for long sessions. I turned a slice into a hook/double cross, but I was never able to fix my path. That's what I was working on with those irons for 160 balls at a time. Just path (and a related sway), which I was sometimes able to figure out, but then I'd lose that progress. I could never quite keep it going. I can remember one day when the grass tees were open at my range. I hit some off the mat until I was sure I wouldn't dig a hole in the grass. I went over the the grass tees and stroked about 80 balls. Great contact, in to out path, slightly more draw that is ideal, but just great golf for me. I wrote about it, tried to continue my progress, but a week later I was back to fat OTT contact. Another time I played a full round where I never hit a bad ball. I had great contact on literally every swing, and I think I hit down too much once on a driver, but that was the only bad shot I had that day. On 18, it was a par 3 forced carry over water. I had to carry probably 130 yards or so. A buddy of mine pointed out that if I didn't double bogey (or maybe triple or something), I'd break 100. I think at this time either I'd never broken 100, or I had just once or twice. I remember just being totally confident that I would land on the green, and I did. I par'd it (or maybe birdy'd, I think I still have the scorecard somewhere) and shot a 96 which was a personal best for me at the time. I remember that round because I took extensive notes after it, wanting desperately to keep the magic alive. I spent the next three years looking over those notes for clues I missed to help me regain the magic, but I never could.

The point I want to make for others out there struggling is that I needed to swing the club everyday to significantly improve. I'd tried everything, and daily practice is the only thing in three years that has helped me improve. The range three times a week was not enough. Swinging a club in my office during conference calls (but not on a mat or anything, just kind of thinking about path and feel) was not enough. I think the best way to improve is to hit balls as close to everyday as you can. Just enough to keep things fresh in your mind so you don't regress or lose progress. So go buy a mat and a net, and keep the magic going.

Assuming you know what are the one or two main areas that need improvement and have an aid and/or drills to improve then a good way to train the brain in the new move is to:

1) spacing

2) variability

3) challenge

Spacing - don't do the rake and hit with a single club, take your time, back off setup again.

Variability - change the pace of your swing, change the club, change the length of your swing, change where on the club face you hit the ball

Challenge - add some challenge to the process - say do 3 swings without ball, then 3 with ball, then 3 with ball with a goal

Certainly playing a sim game can apply. But the key is to know the area of improvement and what a good move is - too often self diagnosis fails in identify

Here's a brief example of using gravity fit in training - and they have a specific focus for improvement.

Exactly. Getting out there 3 times a week was not sustainable for me at this point in my life. I have two young kids and a job. I was able to get out on a long lunch break for a while, but that's the only way I made it work. My schedule changed, and that's no longer possible for me. I actually haven't been to the range since probably November. But I hope to get my kids out there when they're a little older.

A net and a mat might not be enough/helpful for someone that already hits the ball consistently. I also concede that I can't always tell the difference between a 145 yard pull or a 165 yard draw until I see it on the simulator. But I can tell if my contact was solid. I can tell if the ball starts out left or right of my target. I can tell if I got the ball clean or chunky. For a high handicapper, I think there is no substitute for regular practice focusing on path and contact.

This is very interesting. I will say that the way I play the simulator does seem to match this advice pretty well. You can't hit until the ball has finished registering on the system (about a 2 second delay or so) and then has landed, and the data has been returned. I don't know how many seconds that takes, but it does keep one from raking and slamming. I typically play full length courses with a hybrid as my longest club, or par 3s to practice. That creates variability and challenge. So I'll admit, this is probably better practice than I used to do at the range.

Even so, I really do believe that my recent improvement has been driven primarily by regular/daily practice. At the range, I would usually pick a flag, get a club to match, and try to hit the green. There was a 130 flag that I usually tried to hit with a 9i. I'd try to hit the same line but land off the back with an 8i. There was a depression at the range at 155 and I'd try to send my 7i into it. And there was a 200ish yard flag depending on what mat you hit off of, where I'd try to hit my 5i just shy of, or run my 3h up onto. I didn't often practice half swings, etc., but I did work on punch shots trying to keep from going ott/stay on plane. The bottom line is that I really did hit different clubs and different shots. But no matter what, I just couldn't string more than maybe two range sessions together where I could stay on plane. I'd lose that feel and I never had anything to build on, so I never improved.

I think this is great advice, but I really don't think it would matter much if I only hit the range once a week. I could have followed this advice better, but I think I have more or less done this pretty well the last few years. I think the missing element was regular/daily practice to keep my swing fresh in my mind. I personally couldn't ingrain feel without hitting balls regularly.

Absolutely you can take days off and improve whether high or low handicapper. Doing something every day may be what works for some folks and won't be necessary for others at all.

I practice pretty much every day. I seriously lack talent for this game and I have to constantly work on it just to keep my head above water.

I can't argue with that. Everyone is different. And I am still taking days off; for instance, I won't hit any balls today.

While I do think that hitting a few balls literally every day would be ideal, at least for anyone like me/in a similar circumstance, the last month and a half I've probably hit balls 4-5 times a week. If you feel like you're in a rut/not improving despite practice, hitting balls as often as possible certainly can't be a bad thing to try.

One more caveat: When I was hitting balls at the range a few times a week, I'd say it was more of a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday thing, or a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday thing. That is, I did not hit balls when the range was busy on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I was still taking 3-4 day breaks even when I was practicing the most at the range.

So what is your practice strategy when you go to hit balls?

I feel the same way. I'm hoping that I'll eventually reach a point where I don't have to practice everyday to maintain some level of skill. Despite my best efforts, my swing had not changed much in the last three years. I tried all kinds of things to fix my path issue, but I'd say that the only thing that I really fixed was face control. I used to break my wrist at the top of the backswing, and I made some backswing changes that addressed that flaw fairly well. But despite fixing the face issue, my path problems persisted. I can't tell you how many times I thought I'd figured something out only to fall back into old/bad habits. The last 8 times or so I've hit the ball, I've really been hitting it well. I've never strung so many good times together before. I really thing it has to do with frequent practice.

My hope is that I can train my hips to consistently work well in transition, to where it becomes my default swing. Right now, if I really try to kill one, or don't warm up, I can feel my hips go early and pull the club slightly over plane. It's not as bad or as pronounced as it used to be, but it isn't completely fixed either. I don't expect to be satisfied if I finally break 90, or anything like that. But man, I would really love to keep this level of consistency going. And if it somehow became the default, that would just be incredible.

To keep this level of effort up, I'll probably have to take my own advice and get a mat and net at my own home. I probably can't realistically keep it up long term, but maybe I'll be able to keep it up long enough to engrain this new swing that's working for me.

At the range, I'd pick targets between 130 and 200, and try to get the ball close. Typically, I'd be all over the place. Short, left, right, and unpredictably so. When I wasn't swinging well, which was most of the time, I'd mostly focus on trying to hit the inside of the ball with a 7 or 8i. I almost never hit a push, but a draw would tell me I was coming from the inside some. But more often I'd notice a flaw, either an excessively OTT path, or hitting the mat before the ball, and look up some videos about that flaw and try to fix it with drills, concepts, etc. I feel like I did improve some over the past three years, but my scores don't reflect it. I'd often thing I had something figured out, but then after a few days or weeks without swinging, and I'd come back to that idea and it wouldn't work for me anymore.

Now I like to play short courses or par 3s on the simulator. So let's say hit a long iron or hybird off the tee. Maybe another iron. Then an approach shot. If I'm not on the green I'll chip on, and I've got the simulator set to do gimmie's if you're on, so I don't waste time putting on the simulator. I think that fits pretty well with your spacing, variability, challenge strategy. Before I play a course, I usually set the simulator on range mode, and just work on hitting the inside of the ball and not pulling too much. That's my warmup, usually no more than 10 or 20 balls, just to get that feel of my hips not rushing like they used to. All I really think about during the warmup is good setup, keeping my head behind the ball, and getting that feel where my hips don't rush/turn early.

If I get a mat, I plan to keep it about the same. Get the basics right. Remember that hip feel for good path. Hit some balls that feel right, not fat, and start out center or a little right, and I'm golden.

So you have no strategy to improve your swing . I was hoping to hear that an instructor identified the most important improvement area in your swing and you were working on that -sounds like you've self identified something and are just hitting balls trying different things with no feedback and no drills. I'd suggest you take a lesson from Dan or Monte and focus on what they identify as your area for improvement and follow their drills. You mentioned you took lessons before - don't know the details - but Dan and Monte are very effective and not only identify the issue but give you drills to practice etc.

Good luck.

Thanks; I'll need it. I took a lesson in December. I was told to get the shaft more vertical at the top, to keep my left heel on the ground during the whole swing, and to fix my path. I got my shaft more vertical at the top and kept my left foot planted, but my path issues persisted. I asked about it on this forum, and someone sent a video about staying on sides (essentially keeping your head behind the ball), which I think helped me stop swaying both backward and forwards. That led to some improvement. Then after my dad got his simulator, I hit it fat and OTT a bunch, but then somehow I just started feeling my hips move better and in a way that let me come at the ball more from the inside. My contact and distance improved. It's far from perfect, and my miss is still an OTT pull, but I've gotten way more consistent. That is the reason for this post. I really have improved more in the last month and half than I did in the last three years.

Maybe to better answer your question, right now, I'm trying to eliminate the fat/pull shot. I do seem to be hitting less and less of them, and when I do, they're not as dramatic. So maybe I'd call that trying to engrain the fix that is currently working for me. I'm doing that by warming up, getting that feel, and then trying to focus on that hip feel. It seems to be working so far. So I agree that I self identified my issue. But no, I don't think I'm just hitting balls and drying different things with no feedback. I'm hitting shots on the simulator at real targets. But again, I really think my rapid improvement is due to the frequency of my practice and the related ability to maintain my hip feel that is helping me swing from the inside.

I feel like I'm getting a lot of pushback on this. I've improved more in the last month and a half than in the last three years. I could be wrong, but I think it's because I've hit the ball 4-5 times a week over that duration. If you feel like you're in rut or not improving, maybe figure out a way to hit the ball as close to daily as you can. Maybe it's just me, but it might work for you...

I took a lesson with Monte in December - my issue was not extending in the backswing enough (I used to but hadn't played much this past year and well it's golf so things go a little sideways)

We worked on different things to get me in the better position - he video'ed and I walked away a happy camper with a focus - I hadn't hit balls since August before seeing him and literally the first balls I hit was for him.

I'm still working to engrain this better - it was the last piece I changed before my swing really took off so I'm not surprised it was the first to go with lack of play/practice. Point is we worked until I got the change in and hit balls with it multiple times - I didn't just get told to extend more in my backswing.

To me, unless there was more hands on it's doesn't sound like a productive lessons - don't understand why you need to keep the left heel down, or how you are suppose to fix your path - when I saw Dan, my path needed change - i got the club head inside and recovered to get to the top but I set myself up to get steep on the downswing - he had me doing the alignment stick drill and we worked for at least 30 minutes while I did that - gave me other drills and setups - told me to do it slowly - three months after this lesson I gained 30 yards off the tee when I added extending in the backswing.

See one of them online if not in person. Weren't you in Florida? If so, see Dan in Jacksonville might be a things to consider.

Virginia. I saw a reputable instructor, but he had trouble diagnosing my swing (by his own admission). He tried several different approaches during the lesson, but when I left it was just shaft vertical, heels down and more stable. I gave that my best shot but my path did not improve. In his defense, whatever I've been doing with my hips is subtle. It's just a little delay maybe paired with a more up and out feel as opposed to a clockwise feel. That probably doesn't mean much to anyone, but it's hard to verbalize.

My current plan is to keep hitting balls as often as possible and hope I don't lose the hip feel I have. It really is something. When I start to lose it, I've even been able to exaggerate it some. I've pushed a few balls which is something I could never do before no matter how hard I tried. Another month and it will be close enough to golf season for me here. I'll get out as much as I can and see how much this fix really improved my game. Then I'll go for there. This season I may do a club fitting, I may do some more lessons, but I'll figure that out after a few rounds.

No reason to defend this instructor - having trouble diagnosing your swing is a big red flag - good instructors only need to see a couple and they have it.

I'd be careful on this hip thing you talk about - again, self diagnosis is not the way to go. Invest the $50 or so and get a video lesson from Dan/Monte. You won't be sorry.

I always revert back to giving myself little games and challenges during range sessions. Pick a small target and simulate on course conditions/scenarios. Less focus on technique, more so on feel and executing in pressure situations.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll only try and work on 1 to 2 new swing thoughts at a time. Overloading the brain on the golf course has never worked for me personally.

OP,'

DM im if you want my thoughts on some instructors here in VA. If you are anywhere Central or Western, I might have ideas. I've managed to pull myself from a 26 index to a 9-12, and while my index has stagnated a little while I didn't have time to to work on my game this past spring and summer, I've been working hard this winter and seen my scores become far more consistent. I definitely fiddle with a club and do tiny chips and putts at home every day, but I only hit balls outdoors or on Trackman twice a week and play once if I'm lucky. With lessons, that's enough for me to improve my ball striking - it's been my putting and to a lesser extent my short game that have suffered from less frequent practice.

I'm up north, but thanks for the offer.

You bring up an interesting point about what suffers when you take a break from practice. Another thing that I probably failed to point out in my original post is that 99% of my practice is irons. I hit the driver when I know I'm going to play a round soon, but that is more about making sure things are still OK as opposed to trying to fix or improve anything. For the last three years, I've had a low playable fade. I'd say my average distance has been an unimpressive 220 or so, but playable straight, so it's not my top priority for practice. I had a run in Myrtle Beach last year when I was driving 260 consistently (per my gps watch). I was swinging out of my shoes and half the time I'd put the ball in the trees, but that was fun. I really only practice putting and chipping for about 30 minutes when I'm early for a round. I've gotten into this in another thread, but I primarily practice my irons. Some have pointed out that I could probably better lower my score with short game practice, but I've conceded that lower scores aren't my overall goal. To enjoy golf, I don't want to hit flubs or double crosses. The only really frustrating part of my game is iron play. When I hit a decent drive, and I need to hit a 140-200 yard shot, I'll get up to the ball and flub/top it 30 yards, or double cross it 100. That is really frustrating. That doesn't happen every time, but it does happen once or twice a round.

So that's what I've been focused on, and recently I've been making progress. I still need to tighten up the distance variation on my shorter irons. The 7i for instance is still about a 140-160 club. But the 140s are becoming less and less common. Even more encouraging is the longer irons. With my OTT swing, I rarely hit the long irons much farther than say an 8i. The longer the club, the harder the chunk maybe. My old 8i was about my 140 club, my 7i was my 150 club, my 6i also usually went 150, and same with a 5i. When I got ahold of one, say with a good path, or more likely a lucky compensation, my 5i would roll out to almost 200. But those were few and far between. Think about trying to play a round where you have 220 off the tee with a driver, and then your only option is 150 from there on out. Then you can see why I've been focused on fixing my irons.

I mean to say that I think this is excellent advice, but I got distracted. I used to take water breaks and watch videos at the range, but I don't think I did a great job at this. The simulator has forced me to not only focus on specific challenges, but also it distracts me from getting too caught up/in my head about too many things at once.

I think what a lot of people are misunderstanding about this thread is my currently skill level, and what specifically I'm trying to improve. Going from a flawed swing to a swing that is good enough to build on and improve is a huge step. Some people are probably so naturally talented that they don't understand this. Going the the range once a week was not enough to turn my default swing from a bad sequenced swaying over the top mess, to a tighter better closer to on plane work in progress. My key to success seemed to be practice that was frequent enough to maintain the feels that allowed me to come from the inside. When I didn't keep my trail knee bent a little, or I swayed back too far, or my hips got too fast too early, it felt wrong. I was able to fix it and build my swing up to where I wasn't wasting all my time searching for it. This is because I could remember the feels day to day and it was fresh it my mind.

Dieting is a good example. Right now I'm trying to lose a lot of weight, not just maintain my weight. Once I get a decent iron game going, and I do think I'm close, I'm really really hoping that I can ease back on the frequency of my practice and just maintain what I've got going. Maybe my next goal will be chipping, or driving. I don't know. But once this intense focus on irons pays offs, I'm hoping I can ease back, maintain the skills I've developed, and start focusing on new things to improve. We'll see.

I thought I'd post an updated to this thread. This was originally posted pre-pandemic, so things have obviously changed. I'm not able to practice as frequently, but I still think most of the advice holds up. I've figured out a few things with my swing, and I think I'm in a different stage of development.

Since my last post, we went into lockdown and the golf simulator was one of the few options I had for recreation. As a result, I was playing even more frequently than before. I've had several faults I've had to work on. Swaying, lunging, and getting the club outside in transition are probably the biggest issues I've been able to identify and work on in the past year. As I explained in the original post, I had a wrist cupping issue I figured out on my own which took just a ton of time. These newer faults have proved similarly difficult to address. The swaying/lunging is something that I could more or less tone down when I concentrated on it, but it was probably a symptom of another issue that manifested when it was not something I was focusing on, and especially when I got tired. Getting the club outside in transition has been the killer in my swing. For the longest time I just couldn't figure it out no matter what I tried. Videos, a lesson, etc., just didn't help. During lockdown when I was really hitting a lot of balls, I had these periods in which I was on fire. Then I would lose it for a couple hours or a couple days, and I just couldn't figure out how or why. I'm not talking about just playing ok or better than usual, I was experiencing huge swings in my abilities. I shot 87, breaking 90 for the first time ever, and then a week or two later I had a run where I couldn't hit any of my irons more than about 120, and I honestly was at a loss for what was different/wrong. That issue lasted for days. Then it just randomly gradually got better and I couldn't really tell you why. I was really putting a lot of effort and time into my golf game and experiencing some high highs and really low lows, so this was a very frustrating time for me.

Since then, I've been able to identify two things that have led to much greater consistency. I think these are things that I'd been doing on and off, but I've finally been able to identify and record more precisely what I'm doing to improve my swing, which has allowed me to get back to a better swing even on an off day. During my last lesson in the fall of 19, the only real issue the instructor identified or tried to change in my swing was that I was sucking the club inside on the backswing, and my shaft was too flat/laid off at the top of the backswing. I'd previously tried to address that problem, but my attempt did not lead in better ball striking. I took some video of myself, and I could see that I was swaying back and that my backswing was way too flat. On tv, I'd noticed that some guys kind of rehearse their backswing as part of their pre-shot routine, and it looks like they're tilting their head down to their lead side, whereas I had been keeping my head pretty level. When I explain the following, I think the guys that are good will immediately understand me and know what I'm talking about, and those that are struggling will have a hard time getting much out of my explanation, but I'll do my best. My natural and flawed backswing involved rotating more flat around my body and resulted in a hand path that looked like a semicircle going back behind my body. My head would follow a similar path, swaying back and inside, which promoted an over the top move in transition. When I finally figured out that I needed to avoid swaying back, and at the same time kind of rotate from or rock back with my shoulders, I was able to have a hand path that started out more in a straight line away from my target. I think I had a false belief that I need to get my hand back about 45 degrees from the target to swing down along a very in to out path. In reality, while the club head may move in to out, my hands really needed to go more along a straighter path in the backswing. When I perform this improved backswing, the feeling is very unnatural and I get the sensation that I'm going upside down. I also feel like my club is across the line at the top of my backswing, but when I check either by looking or on video, my club is exactly where I'd want it to be. So for me, there was a huge disconnect between what I thought was happening, what I felt, and what was real, in my backswing.

The second issue I had to figure out was that in transition, I was still sticking to my old bad habit/compensation of getting the club outside of plane, even after I had improved my backswing. This was a much more natural/intuitive fix. Prior to fixing my backswing, good contact was all about my compensations in transition. I had to do the impossible in keeping my back to the target, holding off my shoulders, etc., so I was no stranger to trying to game my transition move. I hope y'all got something out of my backswing explanation, but I have even less confidence that my transition description will be helpful. There is just too much going on in too little time to really explain transition effectively. All I can really say is that with my bad backswing, and flat shoulders, the club just naturally moved outside, and all I could do was to mitigate (not correct) that over the top path. In a much better position at the top due to the improved backswing, I had the option of making a move that dropped the club more into the slot and actually allowed me to come a little from the inside. I wish I could tell you exactly how I do that, but all I can really say is that when I rehearse transition in slow motion, my hands come straight down. When I'm hitting the ball well, I feel like I'm (my body is) staying on top of my swing and the movement in transition is not out or to the target, but straight down. Now in reality, I'm sure my hands are moving along all three dimensions (probably down, out, and towards the target) but the feeling is just down. My left knee pulls my hips open which reverses my side bend, which pulls my trail elbow in. My hands feel like they drop straight down, the club shallows, and then I can rotate through, which to me just means I can swing naturally. Now I'm not saying I've figured out golf or anything, but my ball striking has been night and day better. I still occasionally get too quick, steep, and chunky, sometimes I thin it, but I'm almost always ending up with a decent and playable shot. Even better, I think I've entered a phase of my swing in which I can simply maintain it.

This is at the heart of why I took the time and effort for this long post. I think now that I've been able to fix a few flaws in my swing, it's gotten consistent enough that (knock on wood) I won't have these hyper-pronounced hot and cold runs. More specifically, since I improved my backswing and transition, I haven't totally lost my swing. I've had good and bad days, but I haven't let had a period in which I really just couldn't make solid contact. My schedule has changed due to covid, and I'm really only getting one day I can spend any real time hitting balls. Maybe another 20 minutes or so here or there on occasion, but really I'm averaging about one two hour simulator session a week, and I've still been able to maintain my progress. I've only been able to play 9 holes since I broke 90 for the first time, but I did manage a 43. So to reiterate my cautionary tale: If you're trying to fix a fundamental swing problem (like my sever over the top swing), don't spend a decade once a week at the range. Get lessons, focus, swing a club every day if possible, and work it out. Then once you're made some progress, you can probably go back to occasional practice and just maintain your progress. But I still strongly believe that significant and fundamental change requires regular frequent practice.