Which Athletes Make The Best Golfers? — Why Other Sports Connect With Golf

Ever wondered which other sports produce excellent golfers and why? Or maybe how the sport you excelled at as a kid may have given you the skills to hit the ball long off the tee, or have the mindset to play elite if not professional golf? Why does she hit it so far? There are often a few dynamic rotational sports nestled in the background of some super talented golfers.

Use Your Childhood Sport To Improve

When I coach I constantly ask my pupils questions, so I can find out as much information as possible to know how best to coach them. One of the most relevant questions is, “Do you play any other sports?”

The reason is because you will not find a good golf coach who doesn’t connect those sports to aiding improvement in a player’s swing. More often golf is not that player’s first sport. It may have been football, tennis or ice or field hockey. Whatever it was, it taught that player to use their body to create power and transfer energy from the ground up.

Often, familiar sporting muscle memory will relate to a player's faults. A decent batter on the cricket pitch may well adopt a slice if they are both a right-handed batter and golfer, left handed batters don’t struggle as much.

When coaching, I’ll have a ball or a racket and ask that player to show me how they use it in their chosen sport. Proving a hockey swing isn’t that dissimilar to a short golf swing will help a good field hockey player with impact positions.

Keeping the ball low instead of flicking it up is vital in their mind. The mind has to know how to make the action happen, the loft on the club does all the work and hey presto, the ball rockets up and forwards. Olympic Gold Medalist Alex Danson-Bennett found golf was a great fit when she learnt to play golf, and all hockey players make excellent and powerful golfers.

Catch Them Young

Sport creates great golfers before they’ve picked up a club. One thing you cannot teach a golfer is the way a child learns efficient transference of energy. Give my son a tennis racket and he will make an excellent action through the forehand.

On the golf range I encourage him to really hit the ball hard, but I don’t push just golf. I want him to play football, tennis and basketball. Multi-sports develop speed, so he’ll be working on his golf when he’s smashing those forehands over the tennis net. Speed is more important than control when you’re young. Technique slows everything down. As the kids are growing fast, train them fast.

This is where the long hitters come from and is so important within the women’s game. Courses are too long, so if you want your daughter to be an elite golfer, get her playing hockey or tennis, even better, get her sprinting. A fast sprinter has total body fitness and they will make excellent golfers. Speed is queen.

Dynamic Sport Background

There are certain moves within other sports that mimic efficient actions in the golf swing. Therefore it makes sense that there are certain sports that lend themselves better to golf than others. The sports that involve efficient rotational power and weight transfer. Any sports that have rotational action will transfer well into golf. But there are some that will surprise you.

Ice Hockey

Even though ice hockey players are on an unstable surface that is slippery, they have the most incredible core control to still rotate and shift through the shot with some serious power. Imagine the transference of this to golf, and that's why ice hockey players excellent golfers. We’re talking major distance and great sequence of movement.

The 2018 USA team played a great deal of golf whilst training in the run up to the Winter Olympics. Team captain Meghan Duggan said “Over half the players brought their clubs, we played every day after training.”

Self confessed Happy Gilmore fans, there was much laughter and fun had on the golf course, but joking aside these athletes made very proficient golfers. Three-time Olympian Hilary Knight said, “We can’t play hockey forever. I think the word is being spread in the states about how good a golfer can be with an ice hockey background. It might just inspire other hockey players to have a go at the game.”

This is true of Canadian Olympic golfer Alena Sharp, who had a rich background in hockey before she took up golf. She continued playing hockey well into her LPGA tour career which began in 2005. “Growing up, I knew I had a passion for sports. I played hockey, soccer and golf. I realised as I got older, I was becoming better at golf and there was a future in that sport.” Those other sports will have played a huge part in her success on the fairways.

Football

The England Lionesses proved that there is some serious golf talent amongst the team. To play football to a high standard you need excellent hand and eye coordination, lower body strength and endurance. The ability to kick a ball far requires rotational strength of the core muscles and strength and explosive power in the hips and legs. Your balance and speed have to be A1 if you are a top footballer.

It’s no wonder that ex-professional footballers swarm onto the fairways both during training camps and following retirement from the game. The 2021 Lioness team played Boundary Lakes in Hampshire during training. They all have the movement to make great players.

England captain and Arsenal star Leah Williamson has golf running gently through her veins. She dabbled as a kid and like so many footballers she has a great action. This is definitely a sport she’ll excel at with the right coaching. I’d love to see more female footballers playing golf. As the women's game grows I believe we will see more and more as the pay gap closes and they can access both more time and facilities.

Tennis

Ash Barty proved that a leap from the courts onto the fairways was a brilliantly natural move. Tennis is probably the most common sport I talk about when referring to movements that athletes can use in their swings.

Tennis and field hockey ran through the veins of my family and I’m sure this is why my brother and I can hit a long ball. We learnt to really utilise the ground to transfer energy into that tennis ball. Explosive power and excellent rotational action through the ball is definitely one of Ash Barty’s strings to her power bow.

Barty boasts a 4 handicap and was originally rumoured to be turning pro when she retired from tennis at the age of just 25. In reality the Grand Slam champion loves golf and wow is she good at it. Nelly Korda credits a tennis mentality for her success on the golf course and she was a pretty handy all round athlete herself which helped her on her way to world domination on the LPGA tour.

Basketball

Basketball players make excellent golfers because they have an incredible reach. They can raise their arms well above their heads to block or catch a ball, and this is the lateral raise we perform in Titleist Performance Institute screens that show a player’s ability to reach the top of the swing in control and maintain posture whilst doing so. Basketball players also have extremely long levers so they can create brilliant width and gather distance efficiently.

When one of basketball’s biggest stars, Caitlin Clark, found herself at a loose end when the WNBA 2024 season ended, she hit the golf course. The 22-year-old, who played golf throughout her childhood, even joked about “becoming a professional golfer” in her off season.

Clark competed in the pro-am at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge tournament last year and crushed drives down the fairway alongside Nelly Korda. This crossover of sports is such an important part of growing the women’s game with many of these incredible talented athletes fighting for better pay and greater recognition.

Other sports have so much to offer golf. If you are a good sprinter, then golf may just be up your street. Sprinting uses all your muscles and I’d encourage every parent to get their kids running fast to learn that explosion and full use of their entire bodies. If you were a track and field athlete as a kid, think about having a go at golf. You could be hiding superpowers when it comes to hitting the ball a decent distance.

Baseball, lacrosse, swimmers and hockey players to name but a few all show huge strengths within the golf game. If you play competitive tennis, but feel like your body needs something lighter, book a golf lesson. I believe there are countless injured athletes who have written their sport off at a high level and yet they could turn their athletic talent easily to golf and still be highly competitive.

Who knows which sports club the next superstar on the LPGA will come from. Knowledge is power, so make sure you tell your golf coach what sports you played as a kid, what’s within your blueprint for movement. It may just unlock a bunch of extra yards.