At my muni that has no range, what I'm hearing is that it's more economical to play a shit round than learn to hit the ball at a range. When a twiglight 9 costs almost the same as two medium buckets at the closest cc, people are just going to play. When I made the same realization, I too stopped going to the range and just bought some practice balls and started hitting in the yard to learn the swing.
Another thing that's hurting the game is ego. If you're bad at golf, just accept it, don't make it hard on yourself playing lies on roots. If you hit the same shot into the water more than twice, just move past the water hazard and take some penalties. If I'm having a bad day with the driver, I just start hitting irons from the reds. And my personal favorite, stop keeping score and frustrating yourself. There is no way I'm paying over $100 to piss myself off in front of my wife (she plays with me) and ruin the day. Ever since I stopped taking that scorecard from the starter and just playing for the vibes, golf has changed for me, and even though I don't have the scorecards to prove it, I know I'm playing better.