CalBoomer

The straight left arm has little to do with power. It has everything to do with the club head contacting the ball at exactly the right level.

I really agree with this. Too vertical a swing path promotes counter rotation of the arms, a slightly open face, and cutting or slicing with loss of distance. It also sounds like you are not contacting the ball with a forward leaning (or hockey stick or hands ahead of the clubface) iron position. Virtually all pros and good golfers hit irons with the club in this position at contact.

I have had exactly the same experience and now tee higher consistently with much improvement in my drives. Here is my explanation. What you describe as a baseball swing (which is exactly how it felt to me) is really a more horizontal swing than you were used to. And is probably better suited to the length of the driver. And probably results in a better 1-plane swing. My own drives are now straighter, higher, and longer. But it takes a while for it to feel natural.

I can't get into the 1-plane, 2-plane mindset of their being totally different. There is a constant gradation from highly vertical (2-plane) to mostly horizontal (1-plane). As clubs go from short to long, the best swing plane shifts from more vertical to more horizontal. It's a simple function of the length of the club and geometry.This can always be best seen from behind the player (or in a mirror). Anyone who thinks they can hit a driver well with the same swing plane as a 9 iron is simply fooling himself. One will be good and the other bad. Or they are not really doing what they think they are doing.

This visualization helps me. Pretend you are making an underhand throw with your right hand over the shortstop's head. And be sure to keep your head down while doing it! Hope you played some baseball.

Since you have a 10.5 driver, you must be slightly de-lofting the club at contact. And since you slice a lot, you probably have too vertical a swing plane. So: #1 Tee the ball up a little more forward and higher (as already suggested) so the driver contacts the ball on a slight upswing. #2 Make your swing plane more horizontal (a mirror helps with this). #3 Follow through with your right hand. Pretend you are throwing a baseball underhand over the shortstop's head. Good luck.

One different piece of advice from all the good advice on this post. After hitting 50 balls with one club, just about anybody can get into a groove. On the range, practice mixing in wedge shots amidst other iron shots and drives. Or imagine yourself playing holes. Only when you can keep your consistent "feel" or "technique" or whatever in the midst of such change on the range will you be able to take it to the course.

This is how most pros really deal with these situations. "Feel" is a termed used by folks who don't know what they are actually doing, can't express what they are actually doing, or haven't thought about what they are actually doing.

All irons, long and short should be hit with the club leaning slightly forward at contact. If right hand action becomes too dominant near the contact point, you can lose his club position which will cause deterioration in consistent striking.

For years, the best I could manage with my irons was a slight cut with intermittent slicing. Two pieces of advice from Hank Haney's book completely cured the problem. #1 Flatten your swing plane. Much of slicing comes from too vertical a swing plane which induces counter rotation of the arms and an open club face. A flatter swing plane favors normal arm rotation at contact and a neutral or slightly closed club face. #2 The flat of the back of your left hand should lead through the swing at contact, returning the club face to a neutral position. Swinging out-in or in-out will have much less effect on ball flight than either of these two keys. Try practicing in front of a mirror to have a better idea of what your swing plane really is like.

All pros and good golfers hit irons with the club leaning slightly forward at contact (like a hockey stick). I think one of the main advantages of this position is that it is slightly more forgiving of small mis-hits (fore and aft) than other possible club positions. I also agree with the person who commented on weight back as a cause of fat hits. For myself, once I worked seriously on the "leaning forward" position at contact, my serious mis-hits decreased markedly.

Everybody is better on the driving range than on the course. That's just golf.

A draw by definition has slight forward (at the top of the ball) spin as well as lateral spin which causes the ball to move downward and to the left from its main launch trajectory. The slightly lowered effective trajectory usually provides more run-out once the ball has landed. That run-out can provide more distance but makes it harder to be certain where a draw will finally wind up. A fade (or, in more exaggerated form, a slice) has the opposite spin (backward at the top of the ball) and lateral spin which causes the ball to rise and move to the right. The rising effective trajectory causes the ball to lose some distance but to land more quietly with little run-out. A truly straight ball has no lateral spin and slight backspin, making it behave more like a mild fade than a draw. Pros are more interested in distance control on long shots than amateurs. All of them can hit the ball a long way compared to most amateurs (hence power) and many prefer the controllability of a slight fade to the less predictable draw, hence "power fade." This is the basis for the old adage, "You can talk to a fade, but a draw won't listen." The bottom line is that the majority of pros seem to prefer to avoid the draw and hit a ball which straight or fades slightly, sacrificing a small (for them) amount of distance.

6-foot putts are tap-ins?? Dave Peltz accumulated data that show pros only make 50% of 6-foot putts! At 10-feet his data shows pros only making 10%. Either this forum is populated by a lot of pro golfers or amateur golfers with great (but unrealistic) expectations.

Don't change what you are doing, especially if your swing otherwise is fine. All golfers should use head tape to document where on the clubhead they are hitting the ball and adjust the set-up so that they are hitting on the sweetspot.