A couple/few years ago I was out playing with my parents and getting real frustrated with how I was playing, to the point that I really didn't enjoy going out. I came to the realization that I had two choices: stop playing or try to get better. Since I still wanted to go out an play with my parents, I decided to try to get better. At the time I wasn't playing or going out to the range much, so I started going more. And I started watching videos on youtube. Since then I've essentially re-built my swing and made quite a few realizations that have both helped and hurt my game. Where I'm at now really boils down to a few things. 1. Grip. I was squeezing too hard with my grip. Now I take a firm but not tight grip with my left hand and keep my right looser. 2. Set up properly. Make sure the grip is right, the stance is right, etc. The big thing for me is making sure to set my shoulders. I realized that when I came set, I tended to close my shoulders, bringing my alignment off to the right (and then would wonder why I kept pushing things right). I tried to fix it by opening my stance and rotating, but then I was over-swinging. 3. Slow down. A smooth, loose swing will generate more power and be more controllable. 4. Rotate my shoulders, not swing my arms. By focusing on rotating the shoulders through the swing, I'm rotating my core and using my whole body for the swing, not just swinging my arms. I still need a ton of work on my short game, but otherwise I;m playing a lot better. I usually shoot in the mid to upper 80s (I don't know my handicap, I should probably actually calculate it). The one part of my game I'm surprisingly decent at is putting. I watched the Phil Mickelson video on his short game and how he set's up putts, and it really helped. If you look at the stats for PGA golfers, it's something like within 3 ft they're like 99%, but at 6 ft it's 70 % and at 10ft it's 41%. I'm (obviously) not anywhere near as good, but within 3 ft I'm easily over 90%, so my basic goal is to get within that 3ft circle from wherever I am on the green. Just by doing that I usually am guaranteed to at most 2 putt, so I rarely 3 putt.