Lesson of the Week: Bob Milanese

Bob plays his golf up in West Palm Beach and drove down for a face to face lesson to see if he could get some help with his overall ball striking. He was not making very good contact with his irons, and as I watched him warm up and hit a few there were both fat ones and very thin ones, while the ones he hit more solidly had some good quality to them. As we broke down his swing it was apparent that by moving his weight from his heels toward his toes during the swing he was causing himself all sorts of issues that were leading to these inconsistent shots. The first thing we needed to fix was Bob’s posture and balance at address, which were well back into his heels. As he started his swing his left arm came well away from his body, which moved his weight more forward in his feet, but as he approached the top his right foot rolled to the outside while his right arm lifted with the shaft crossing the line at the top. As the weight was moving into his toes in transition his legs could not clear effectively and his entire lower body came forward toward the ball, jamming his arms and keeping his right side and shoulder well back approaching impact. From here there was really no way to release the club into impact with much forward lean, and the result were the different types of mishits.
 
This is an overall swing pattern that has to be addressed from the beginning, so we started with the posture and balance. I tried to give him the feel of sidearm throwing, which he could do just fine holding a ball and tossing it, and we did a few stop and go’s with me trying to get his takeaway to move more toward his body instead of immediately away from it. I took some shots of me working him through his backswing, and tried to get him to shallow the shaft in transition without lifting the right arm up as he approached the top of the swing. I felt like we made some good progress and that Bob understood what he was supposed to be trying to do, but I realize that changing a pattern like Bob’s is a long term project. I hope I will see him again so that we can keep working on the necessary changes.
 

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