The golf swing can be a very difficult movement to learn, especially if you don’t really have a history of playing ball sports. It is a movement that requires good posture, balance, rotation, strength, speed and power. We can throw accuracy into that equation too along with an element of rhythm.

These components can all be trained individually, which is a good thing to do if there is a weakness or restriction. But the challenging thing with golf is that all these elements have to be put together into a movement, and just because you have improved one element (for example, strength) does not mean your golf swing will get better.

As I mentioned, the golf swing can be a difficult movement to learn, but if you have played any kind of ball sport before, there is actually quite a bit of overlap in terms of the movements.

Golf coaches will often talk about “hitting a forehand” in the hitting of a draw in golf (right-to-left ball flight for a right-handed golfer), which makes reference to the forehand in tennis. The act of throwing a cricket ball follows a similar pattern to hitting a golf ball, where there is a windup (backswing), a planting of the front foot (weight transfer), lower-body firing followed by the torso (upper body), then the throwing arm and lastly the wrist releasing the ball (golf club).

Even kicking a football has some application to the golf swing, where you plant and pivot your body around a stationary leg, rotating and transferring power by using the ground.

EJ LANGNER/SUNSHINE TOUR