Heritage Isles Golf and Country Club

Tampa Bay, Florida

Join Our E-ClubBook Tee TimesFacebook Icon Twitter Icon Instagram Icon

Blog

Sports Illustrated Article Recognizes Heritage Isles Golf School

by

 Michael-Bamberger

I am very proud to have been mentioned in the Masters Preview Golf Edition of Sports Illustrated Magazine’s article on my partner Jim Dent, a 12 time winner on the PGA Champions Tour. The article was titled EVERYONE LOVES DENT, and was written by the illustrious sports writer; Michael Bamberger. Mr. Bamberger is one of the country’s most elegant writers on golf. His versatility as a writer and his lucid, open style are hallmarks of his work. Bamberger joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED as a senior writer in 1995 after 13 years as a newspaper reporter.

Michael Bamberger’s Jim Dent Article

The week preceding this year’s Masters, Mr. Bamberger visited The Jim Dent/Rick Bradshaw School of Golf at Heritage Isles Golf and Country Club in New Tampa. Michael immediately was drawn to our Golf School’s library of instruction books which is available for students and instructors to refer to during their lesson. Michael’s article described his visit as; “Dent and I drove from his home to a public course outside Tampa called Heritage Isles, where he owns a golf school with a teaching pro named Rick Bradshaw. His business partner likes a round, stress-free swing, and Jim Dent is his Exhibit A. Bradshaw has a collection of worn-out, marked-up and taped instruction books—by Hogan, Percy Boomer, Jimmy Ballard, Homer Kelley and others—and during our visit Dent studied closely various pictures. He is still a student of the game and loves referring to Ben Hogan’s perfect golf swing”.

Jim-Dent

These books plus hundreds more in my weather beaten library are what substantiate the history of golf instruction and add to my knowledge of what works and why from the beginning of golf in the late 1800’s to present modern day instruction. It is firmly my belief to be extremely well read and knowledgeable of virtually all past and present golf instruction if you are to attempt to instruct individuals to swing a golf club. The close to 40 years of my own personal teaching experience has enabled me to develop my own teaching and communication style. In addition partnering with a tour professional the likes of Jim Dent, who has been categorized by fellow golf professionals as having one of the most powerful and effortless golf swings of all time, has presented an immeasurable amount of experience for me as a passionate golf teacher. Michael Bamberger allowed me to video his golf swing and then we analyzed it together. He is a very good golfer and I soon learned he had immense knowledge of golf instruction. We looked at a very old video of Ben Hogan practicing and hitting drives into the ocean from the backyard of a house next to Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach Florida. Seminole, still extremely exclusive, is now ranked #22 in the world, and back then when they shot the Hogan video it was ranked in the world’s top 10 golf courses. Michael was the only person I have ever shown the exclusive Hogan video to that already knew it existed. He spent about an hour with Jim Dent and me talking about golf instruction and hitting golf balls. In addition, he seemed very impressed with my 280 yard one hand drives to exemplify how effortless the golf swing should be. I thank Michael Bamberger for visiting and writing such a wonderful article about the man and golfer Jim Dent in the Masters Preview of Sports Illustrated Magazine as well as mentioning myself and our golf school.

rick-bradshaw-001

Rick Bradshaw

2004/2006 North Florida Section PGA Teacher of the Year

Director of Instruction, Dent/Bradshaw School of Golf

Heritage Isles Golf Club

The Tortoise and The Hare Play Golf

by

hare

All of you remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. It is one of my favorites because the story provides an analogy of how the golf swing works. There has been much discussion of how the arms and body work together during the swing. The common beliefs are that the arms swing and the body follows or the body provides the force for the arms to swing. The discussion whether the tail wags the dog or the dog wags the tail are ongoing except when you ask a dog.

In the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, the hare is an extremely quick animal with great speed, much like that of our arms in the golf swing. The Tortoise on the other hand is slow, steady and forging. The Tortoise and the hare have a race and the Hare goes to sleep because he is beating the Tortoise so badly. However the hare having slept too long wakes up and tries to catch up to the Tortoise only to lose the race by a hair? Anyway the analogy is this. The body in the golf swing can be the Tortoise, turning and pivoting to create power. The arms represent the Hair because in the race of the golf swing we want the Body to reach impact position with the right hip twisted inwards just before the arms swing through the shot. Now I don’t want a Hula-Dance and I might be convinced that the race between the body and arms could result in a tie. But the arms do not in my opinion win the race as your body transfers weight into the resistance of your left leg on the downswing.

If we were to enter the club head into the race it would definitely finish last lagging behind into the golf ball. Think body and arms work together throughput the swing through a rotary motion allowing the arms and club head to naturally react to the pivot of the body.

rick-bradshaw-001

Rick Bradshaw 2004/2006 North Florida Section PGA Teacher of the Year Director of Instruction, Dent/Bradshaw School of Golf Heritage Isles Golf Club

Ben Hogan Was A Lumberjack

by

Be a Limber Jack swinging a golf club. Many prominent instructors compare the rotary movement of the golf swing to a Lumber jack swinging the ax horizontally into the tree they want to cut down. To implement this feel to the golf swing maintain the flex in the knees and bend from the waist over the golf ball to allow the golf club to swing on the correct plane.

Also be limber not lumber. The golfers that strike the golf ball best have great flexibility to enhance club head speed and center face club contact through the ball like Rory McIlroy.

Allow the momentum of the club head to strike through the golf ball. The secret to the lumber jack cutting wood is allowing the energy built up on the back swing to release into and hopefully through the wood the same as a professional golfer.

Swing through the golf ball with hands, arms and body weight turning through the shot.

Don’t Be an Anchor on a Tanker. When I appeared on Golf Channel’s Academy Live with P.G.A. Tour Pro Tim Petrovic, I coined my phrase Light Foot Right Foot through the ball. This is the allowing of the momentum of the club head to pull your body weight of your right leg on the follow through. This image and action will help synchronize your arms with the body motion so the arms don’t swing past your body leaving your body hanging back like an anchor on a tanker.

Watch Bubba Watson’s trail foot after he hits one of his towering drives. You will see his left foot come off the ground for an instant as the club heads swing momentum goes through to a finish. In this case it would be light foot left foot as Bubba swings from the left side of the ball.

Bubba Watson is certainly a Limber Jack as he leads the tour in driving distance pretty much every year.


Rick-300x200.png

Tip provided by Rick Bradshaw two times North Florida Section P.G.A. Teacher of the Year. G/M, Director of Instruction Dent/Bradshaw Golf School, Heritage Isles Golf and C.C., Tampa Fl.