Advice on how to overcome physiological swing problem

[esad]

I've been working for the last couple of months on fixing my swing and I've almost got it down except for one small problem; I can't hit the ball consistently unless there is something next to the ball.

Let me explain. One of the drills I've been doing is the "two-ball drill." This is a drill where you place two balls on the ground near each other and then you hit the inside ball and don't hit the outside ball. It helps you to hit the ball in the center of the club consistently. If you looked down it would look like this:


O - Miss this ball
O - Hit this ball

<--- Target line

When I put two balls down like this I can hit the ball beautifully. But, as soon as I remove the outside ball I can't hit the ball for [censored]. I start hitting it towards the hosel or shank the ball.

It's purely a physiological/visual thing, but obviously when I remove the outside ball I'm changing my swing somehow, I just can figure out why or how I'm doing. It feels the same and I can't figure out what has changed.

So any advice on how to overcome something like this? It's driving me to drink (more).

Btw, one thing I did think of just before I wrote this was maybe hitting three shots with the other ball and then one without and then repeat until I can do this 20 times in a row. Then hit two with and two without, etc. Until I can hit it without the ball there.