Been playing too much lately. Need a break. I've been playing pretty decent and I really felt like my game was progressing nicely but I decided to take some time off because I developed a bad pull the last two or three rounds and it's causing my front nines to go in the toilet. 
If you watch my swing during the Riverside & Golf Club of Dallas vids you can see that my front foot is spinning out pretty violently after impact. I've been trying to fix it at the range but the pull still hasn't gone away. I ended up playing a fade on the entire back nine at Golf Club of Dallas. I prefer hitting the straight ball because my misses are still pretty much all over the place. Sometimes left, sometimes right, but lately I've been hitting balls straight right and it's been driving me batty that I haven't been able to fix it. 
My dad suggested that I try swinging slower, but I wasn't sure that was gonna fix what's going on with my lower body. Plus, whenever I try slowing my swing down it muddles up my tempo and my short game suffers (100% of the time, every time.). PLUS, I've been going to the gym a lot lately... what's the point in working out if I'm not trying to crush the ball. I'm glad I started putting together the videos of our rounds so I can see what my form is like on the course. The scores aren't ever really indicative of what you need to fix in your swing, and a lot of times a hot stretch of 9 holes on the front or back can really mask your problem areas in your mind. E.g. you pull every ball on the front nine and shoot nine over and end up playing a cut on the back nine to shoot a solid four over. The 83 would suggest solid play, when in fact all 18 holes were pretty much hot crap sprinkled with decent putting. 
So after a few rounds I realized I was just going after it too hard. Now, there's a big difference between playing with finesse and swinging slow. Tons of golfers out there swing at less than 90mph and it looks like a violent mess. There's also a good amount of golfers out there swinging at over 110mph that make it look graceful and balanced (see Ernie Els). Graceful and balanced is what I'm trying to get, but my ego oftentimes gets in the way. Unless you have Bubba Watson level coordination and experience, swinging out of your shoes like I do just isn't a good way to send the ball on its way. I know that the feet spinning wasn't the cause but instead more of the result of the main problem causing the pull; but I think fixing the feet will force me to swing more in control even if I keep the swing speed that I'm comfortable with.
To fix my problem areas, namely the straight pull to the right, I did the following:- "Keep that right foot still" was my only swing thought when I went to the range today;
- Hitting a few straight pushes to the left intentionally;
- Focus on holding a solid finish without falling in any direction;
- Focus on committing at the top of the back swing on the in-to-out path;
- Not accept a shot shape on the range that I didn't fully intend;
- Ask Ted for help on Twitter;
- Listen to Ted's advice;
@CreateGolfers Ted, How do I stop my front foot from spinning out? It's causing a pull I can't get rid of.
— The One Swing (@The_LOTL) August 28, 2013
@The_LOTL Trying flairing toe out to about 11 o'clock position at address. Also... bump hips to target a bit before uncoiling on downswing
— Ted Eleftheriou (@CreateGolfers) August 29, 2013
Overall my session at the range today was pretty successful! I pulled a few balls here and there but I knew immediately what I did wrong. For the most part it was forgetting to root myself into the ground at the top of the downswing and put too much juice into my hip rotation. I'm already smelling some low scores in the near future! Can't wait to play again.
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