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By Jeff Wallner
For those who enjoy a casual
18-hole stroll around the links on a Saturday morning, golf is just
a game. For them, it’s a leisure activity ─ a means by which to pass
the time.
But, don’t tell that to Babe
Bellagamba. For him, golf is not merely a hobby. It’s a science.
Bellagamba, 78, has been teaching
people how to play golf for nearly three decades. He scoffs at a
recent poll that ranked golf near the bottom of the list of most
difficult games to master.
“That’s crazy,” he says. “Golf is
a very confusing sport. There are pros who’ll play a 65 today and an
85 tomorrow. That’s golf.”
Bellagamba has forged a living
from our frustration. He has gained the attention of youngsters,
amateurs and pros from Florida to Iowa to Germany and points in
between. Bellagamba has been called a “genius.” But, he makes one
thing clear. “I’m not a magician,” he says. “I don’t have an instant
swing.”
What Bellagamba does possess is
one of the most innovative and inventive golf instructional
philosophies in the world. It all begins with this basic premise: If
you control your body, you’ll control the golf club. If you control
the golf club, you’ll control the golf ball. If you can control the
ball, you’ll be in control of your game.
It may sound simple in theory, but
it’s not. That’s why Bellagamba has made it his life’s work to help
golfers understand and execute this approach. Contrary to popular
belief, Bellagamba says just playing golf regularly won’t make you
better.
“People think that if you do a bad
swing often enough it’ll get good,” he says. “That’s not true. You
have to learn how to do it correctly. Then it’s repetition,
repetition, repetition.”
Bellagamba was born in Cincinnati.
He was raised in Walnut Hills and attended Purcell High School where
he excelled in both baseball and football. He was a featherweight
boxer in the U.S. Navy for three years and even spent time as an
infielder/outfielder in the Washington Senators farm system before
an injury derailed a promising big-league career.
Bellagamba later became a
nightclub owner and entertainment promoter. He produced and managed
the original Van Dells and helped bring the likes of Ray Charles,
Red Foxx and Chuck Berry to Cincinnati. It didn’t take long for
Bellagamba to realize his passion for golf. When he talks about the
game, Bellagamba the “entertainer” steps to the forefront.
He might have an unconventional
background and atypical training methods, but there is a method to
Bellagamba’s madness. Before his students swing a club, he likes to
give them a quick anatomy lesson.
“You have tendons in your body,”
he says. “When you stretch all of your tendons you become flexible.
If you’re right-handed, your left side is weaker. You must develop
the muscles on your weak side. When the muscles on your weak side
get built up, you get coordinated. I use exercises to build golf
muscles.”
Bellagamba has enlisted the aid of
physical therapists to help him better understand how the body works
and which muscles and movements contribute to the action of swinging
a golf club.
“We have a deal,” he says of his
relationship with the therapists. “They teach me about the muscles
and I teach them golf.”
In order to help golfers
strengthen their “golf muscles” and rid themselves of bad habits,
Bellagamba has invented and patented a number of unique training
apparatus.
Bellagamba’s latest brainstorm,
the Golf Workstation, is an all-inclusive golf muscle training and
posture control system. It has a Velcro belt which prevents a golfer
from moving up or down during their swing.
“The Workstation prevents you from
swaying up and down,” he says. “That’s something you can’t afford to
do in golf.”
The Workstation uses resistance to
develop only the muscles needed during the golf swing. Bellagamba
says that resistance will develop those muscles 10 times faster than
any other form of exercise.
“There are so many bad swings,” he
says. “The only cure is correct experience. If you do enough reps
you will get the feel for it. Each leg has a job description on the
back swing and forward swing. So do the left arm and shoulder.”
Bellagamba, a member of the United
States Golf Teachers Association, also invented S.A.M., the first
full circle swing trainer for beginning golfers to help them learn
the up, down and around golf swing on a controlled single golf swing
plane. His company, ReMark-Able Products, Inc. has marketed a number
of golf games, training equipment and tools.
One of Bellagamba’s favorite
training methods is the 60-second golf swing where he takes a pupil
through each individual movement in the process of swinging a golf
club. The process gradually speeds up until they are completing a
normal swing at full speed.
“I have a complete golf
controlling system to help a person prevent bad habits,” he says.
“Everything is about controlling the body.”
Bellagamba is both a teacher and
entertainer making him one of the most popular golf instructors in
the country. Because of his diverse background in athletics,
Bellagamba says he’s learned something from each sport that he can
apply to golf.
“The turn of the body is what
gives you power in boxing,” he says. “It’s the same in golf.”
Bellagamba is still an avid
golfer, although he admits he gets far more enjoyment out of
teaching others to play.
“You must believe,” he says. “It
will start to work. It just takes patience and discipline. I get
more of a kick out of teaching. I get a kick out of watching someone
hit a ball that couldn’t. Sometimes, I don’t even want to charge
them.”
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