dave, I see your point, and even agree to it to a certain extent. You see, I frequently go to the range, maybe more than 4 times a week.
I used to do exactly what you said, taking my time, visualizing the shot and all. In part, because I knew each ball counted, and I had to make the most out of what I paid my bucket.
But I could hardly change some aspects of my swing. When I was satisfied about my swing, after hitting a half bucket, full of confidence I went to the course.
But the problem is that swing doesn't hold up on the course, and after 9 holes, I'm forced to make a swing change to make it work. You guessed it, my swing was full of swing thoughts. Even though I swung with one thought, other thoughts about forgetting how to do the backswing or whatever would creep up.
You see, with unlimited balls, you're not forced to hit every ball that counts, because in the back of your mind, you have unlimited balls, and you don't care. That's one of the biggest revelation.
So I hit balls, with a certain swing thoughts, and after hitting quite a number of them, I can say: "Hey, that doesn't work. Let's try something else".
You see, you hit balls intelligently, not like a mindless lunatic hitting balls just for the fun of it.
And little by little, your swing gets into a groove.
You get to know the most subtle little thing in your swing, like how much ****ing you have in your backswing, how big was your turn, how much forward are your shoulders at address.
You get to experiment all those little stuff, and the stuff like rhythm.
Before, I used to initiate my downswing before I completed my backswing.
It's something I always wanted to try, but couldn't because I had to make the most out of my bucket. Even when I tried it, it wouldn't work. I needed practice, but with a lot of balls.
Believe me, the body remembers. Muscle memory really exists.
Preshot routine is nice, but it didn't worked for me. Some of my weekend partners have their ritual before hitting a shot, and their ballstriking isn't consistent.
But then again, you might be quite talented. I remember that Sam Snead was talented, as he doesn't have a clue on how he swings, but he just swings it good
PS: BTW, so far so good, my swing holds up
