Anyone else over do it?

I've been hitting a lot of balls in the past few weeks. I've been averaging 6 hours a week between rounds and driving range on an HD simulator (9holes takes about 30-45minutes on the simulator). One hour if range time, I can 100-150 shots easily. It seemed that I was consistent gains in accuracy and distance. Around a week and a half ago, I had a two hour session half driving range, the other half, I played a 9hole round. Fat, thin, topped,duffed, you name it, I couldn't hit the ball if my life depended on it. A few days later I went back and the same thing and again for the next three times out. Today, I went to get my 12year old son introduced, and I took a several shots, and it was the same thing. I am wondering if maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a week or two off, or just keep trying to grind it out. This also leaves me wondering if maybe I have been overdoing it, and too much time is bringing out bad habits. Im sure people have gone through this before, but man it's becoming mind boggling to me.

Yep I agree. Gone are the days of just bashing golf balls over and over again till your hands hurt. I rather spend 1 hour hitting 50 golf balls with purpose than hitting 250 golf balls with no purpose at all.

Oh that actually makes a lot of sense. I've seen this concept before in guitar lessons. I've seen a couple threads that I figured meant to shoot for specific targets and half swings, but didn't think to break things right down like that. I guess it becomes hard to resist the urge to just crank balls, that it just become pointless. Thanks for the link.

How much do you think a person could practice at home? I don't have a net , but maybe chipping balls across the living room at a basket?

Depends on what you are working on. I usually do about 20-30 minutes using a mirror and/or camera and work on a few swing pieces I need to work on. I do not even hit a ball.

Mindlessly banging out ball after ball is pointless. It's so easy to focus on the negative stuff: what you did wrong. We always remember that. We forget the ones we hit well, where everything felt in balance, and those are the ones we need to ask ourselves "what did I do there?" Obviously you got the club into the slot, and got the clubface square. We don't always have a mirror available.

I have an "unlimited balls" membership at the driving range, but my last two sessions I got the 150 ball buckets, and only worked until I accomplished what I'd set out to accomplish for the day. That happened at around 100 balls on Friday and 80 yesterday. I'd bought a tee and cut it down to 1-3/4" which is perfect for hitting my fairway wood at the range - their tees are too high, and I rewarded myself for a job well done by hitting my 17 degree off that for 10 balls = striped 9/10 of them with a 200 yd carry. I saw no point in hitting the rest. You have to reward yourself, too.

I won't practice my swing inside my house except for my putting stroke. Why? Because every time I've practiced my swing in front of a mirror I've shanked the first 25 balls at the range because I've been set up too close in the house because I'm trying not to hit the furniture, and I've been constricting my swing so I don't take a chunk out of the sheet rock on the ceiling. I also don't have room in my garage. Not everyone has a home with 12' ceilings. When I leave the clubs in the bag at home, I have no problem at the range. My yard isn't level, and I don't have room there either. So practice is confined to outdoors at the driving range.

Practice with a purpose. To me, practicing means working on my Priority piece, i.e. One range session I will practice keeping my head Steady, for me, that means looking at the ball until it's gone, I have a bad habit of looking up to early to see where the ball went.

That could mean hitting 20, or 50 balls, I do the drill until I'm consistently keeping my head steady, and the same goes for all the drills I do. For some reason, I need lots of repetition to ingrain anything..lol To give you an example, I have been working on 4 things for the past 9 months, I and others at the range can see improvement in my ball striking, and I'm playing better golf, yet, I'm still a work in progress.

If I just go out and hit balls, it really does nothing for me. I need to be specific in what I practice otherwise it's a waste of time and money imho.

What I practice are the 5 simple keys, and with proper practice and some good lessons improvement is very possible.

If your just hitting balls then your not getting much in return, swing changes are done slowly with breaking down the movements by sequence, you need to spend time checking where your at when your moving at certain positions. The deal is learn it slowly and then speed it up gradually.

There have been times when I have went to the range and just banged balls. Not very often. Just felt like swinging for the fences with various clubs. More of a physical work more than anything else. I would thoroughly warm up first to be careful  to not get my swing into trouble. I would always  pick a target, usually the 100 yard marker. When using a longer club all I looked for was the ball flying over, close to the top of  that marker. The last 20, or so balls I would revert back to my normal swing, and call it good.

Agreed.

Sometimes I'm very diligent on the range and very specific with what I'm working on, but sometimes I'm just there the smash balls because, let's be honest, smashing balls is fun!

I reckon ive hit more practice balls than 99 per cent of golfers im 42 now, I definately think hitting loads of balls does you little or no use, I play better without beating balls I think you just try to overhit the ball on the range, my tempo and rhythm on the course is far better, to improve you need a qualified pro watching you to tell you how to improve go away and think about what the pro has said, I mean understand the swing, understand what hes telling you, just doing what hes said is no good, the why has to be understood. If you just work on stuff yourself you could work on the wrong stuff for years, what a waste of time, I should know ive done it.Defo get a video done compare the swing to top pros then think about what steps need taking, it has to be a scientific approach.

I have spent a bit more time on the range now but only hitting maybe 30 balls. I worked more on keeping my body aligned and watching my swing plane.More working with a slower smoother tempo,and paying closer attention to how I'm physically swinging with my 5/7/9 and PW. The last few swings I did full swings at a bit faster tempo and the shots felt more effortless. I had a video done a couple months ago during a lesson. I am booking in for another set of lessons,so it will be interesting to see how my swing looks now. Next time out,I plan on staying away from the range and focusing on my chipping and pitching. I wonder if there could be a practice regime built similar to a workout regime.