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If you want to lower your handicap faster with the limited time you have to practice, you have to use that time wisely. Staying focused on improving your weaknesses first will drop your handicap quick and improve your overall golf game.
The first step is to prioritize what you practice. Some of you like to hit balls, do video analysis, putt, chip, or even read golf related material. However, is this random practice and learning helping you? Of course it is. Is it helping you get better in the most efficient way possible? No.
Prioritizing your practice means first analyzing your game. Every time you play a scoring round of golf, you should take statistics on every component of your game. To start you off, they include fairways hit, greens hit in regulation, up and downs, putts per hole, driving distance, and of course, score.
When these stats are recorded, it will be apparent for most of you that you are better in some areas and worse in others. During practice, focus most of your time on your weaknesses, not your strengths. You may love driving the ball 270 yards, so it may be fun for you to hit 30 drivers on the range. However this is not making you a better player faster. Being able to drive the ball 275 instead of 270 will not help you score better if you still have a couple of three-putts and get up and down once a round.
This is not to say the short game is more important than anything else, because it is not. In other words, if you do get up and down over 70% of the time, never three-putt, and you still are scoring in the 90's, then it is obvious that you need to work on your driver and irons.
The reason your practice time should be devoted to your weaknesses is not just the obvious one. It is more about efficiency and potential for the greatest improvement. Imagine a 30 handicapper improving to a 25… and then a scratch golfer improving to a +5 (which is PGA Tour level… although Tiger is at least a +9, he's not normal). Improving the weaker player is a much easier task than getting the scratch golfer on Tour. Improving an already strong component is always harder because learning is not a linear process, it is exponential. We always learn and improve most quickly as neophytes and then the hill gets steeper and steeper as we get better and learn more, because frankly, there is just less to learn and improve.
So follow this practice strategy, get all your golf game components up to speed, and you will find that your handicap will drop faster than you ever thought possible.
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