What was your greatest AHA! Moment?

A very good thread topic indeed. Thanks jude.

I think for me, just the general knowledge that "everything is opposite in golf."

To make the ball go up off the ground, you gotta hit down on it a little bit. If you try too hard to pull the ball left, it'll just slice that much more right. I honestly didn't know these things for a while, and played "spatula" golf (i.e. I thought the idea was to wedge the head of the club under the ball and hoist it upward), and the result was worm burner after worm burner. And slice after slice.

I still slice but at least I understand the mechanisms needed to correct it.

I have only recently become aware of the effect of shaft flex in my clubs, mainly due to posts in this and other forums.  I am a 76 yr old senior, but have played with 'regular' flex graphite shafts for years.  Recently I had purchased a 9.5* driver to compare to my 10.5* and, on a whim, ordered the 'A' (senior) flex.  My drives are now averaging 15-20 yards longer.  Truthfully I don't know if it is the loft or the flex, but I have a feeling it is the flex.  I am going to get a 10.5* with the 'A' flex to see whether it is the flex or not.  Now I am beginning to question my fairway woods and irons which are all 'regular' flex except for the 3W which is 'firm'.  Never stop learning....

i learned i'm not good enough to get as mad as i do about my golf game :p

That swinging easier at the ball makes it go further. That and making sure that I'm balanced at address rather than having weight on my toes..

To date (since I've come back to the game), it is figuring out what my pro was trying to tell me when he kept saying "get more behind the ball to get it higher."  Yeah, I guess I'm dense, but it took looking at videos to convince me that my head COULD be farther back behind the ball.  "Ahhh!"  Now I hit my irons nice and high, and fairway woods and hybrids are usable (though not yet feeling very 'reliable').

I have a couple.

My first was in college (1994 or 95 ish).  I was a "solid" bogey golfer at that point, perfectly capable of an 86 or so on a good day, but not too much better, and usually around 90 or so.  I needed to take a silly PE class for an undergraduate prerequisite, so I took a golf class.  I didn't want to look like a dork walking around campus all day with my 7 iron in my hand, so I did like everybody else and checked out the school-owned clubs form the gym.  Their 7-irons had those rubber grips on them that were molded with bumps and humps and grooves to try and teach you how to properly hold the club.  First time I fit my hands around that club, I was like "ahhh, so that's how its suppose to be done!"  I had no idea I was doing it so wrong previously, but my grip was one of those typical hacker super strong grips where even the right thumb is almost around the back of the shaft.  I immediately started improving at that point.

My second one is another grip one.  I don't remember when I did it (I'm gonna guess late 90's), but the first time I tried a reverse overlap putting grip it was another eye opener.  It just felt so comfortable ... and prior to that I just used the exact same grip as my full swing.

Lastly, and probably the most "ahhh"-ish moment of all, was last summer when I started my "myswing" thread and started Evolvr.  That was the first time I had ever seen myself on video, and I was like " THAT is what I look like??  Ugh, we gotta do something about that!"

Truly understanding the Ball Flight Laws and D Plane....to be able to correct myself from shot to shot is the most important thing in golf in my opinion.

My most important "ahhh" occurred three weeks ago.  It cured a problem I had with making bad contact

with the ball around 12 to 15 times a round. The "cure" was accidental.  I watched a video  on starting the

swing with the club already at the top.

One day at the driving range, I tried it and made good contact.  And

then another, and another, and another.  It felt different.  The ball looked bigger and brighter, and the

shadow under the ball looked darker, and my depth perception improved. The shadow of the ball clearly

looked like it was tangent to the bottom of the ball instead of just down there somewhere.

On the course, I emulated this by inserting a long pause at the top, almost a complete stop.  My number of

bad contacts almost immediately dropped to four to five a round, and my scores dropped from 100-102 to

90-91.

I think that what was happening was that my head was turning to the right (right handed) with the backswing,

and the long pause at the top allowed me to stop my head/eyes, allowing me to sight the ball better and locate

it in 3-D space.

Nice.  But do you find that your partners take a peek at their watches while you're dallying at the top?

Seriously, taking some time at the top can help a lot I agree.  I find that I'm more likely to start the downswing with proper hip action if I do that, whereas if I rush it I tend to be too 'armsy'.

Learning to manage my expectations

I used to go out thinking that today was gonna be the day I would shoot my lowest score yet, only to get frustrated almost immediately and sour what would otherwise have been a very enjoyable round of golf.  I have learned that in golf, you have to tee off knowing and accepting that you will have some bad holes/shots (unless you're playing off scratch or near it, lol).

Once I accepted that I was going to have some bad holes, it almost immediately  took the pressure off and I was able to stay much more relaxed during my round and not let a few bad holes sour the entire round.  Case in point, over the weekend I was +13 on the front nine, even gave up 7 strokes over two holes, only to rally on the back nine and still shoot under 90 (that's good for me).  If I had not accepted the possibility of a couple really bad holes like this, I would have been mad and frustrated the entire time on the back nine and played like crap (like I used to, lol).

Trust me, while the scratch golfer's bad days may look pretty durn good to us hackers, they are indeed bad days for those individuals.  Pros have 'em too.  How do you think Rory McIlroy was feeling T25 at two over for the week at the Masters.  Most mortals who got to play four rounds at Augusta and came in only 2 over would still be giggling.  It's a matter of perspective.

Hah!! Strikes a note here. My "aha" was hearing an old Bobby Jones quote:

"Some people think they are concentrating when they're merely worrying."

I like that one. I definitely "worry" to much.

Man, I really like that.  Thanks for posting!

When I realized that theres 2 ways to be in my marriage I can be right or I can be happy. .  O but this is a golf website so mine would be when I realized that a 80% swing with good contact goes farther then the 100% swing that slices into the woods or water.

I didn't see anyone peeking at his watch, but I was playing with guys 70 to 72 years of age. One might have taken

a short snooze. Actually, the long pause might not be as long as it feels--I asked if anyone noticed a difference

in my swing, and they mentioned other things, but not the long pause.