The common denominator between cricket and golf is probably the coordination of movement. And hence, I think cricketers might find it a little easier to pick up golf than most. But the dynamics of the two sports are fundamentally different, and that needs to be said upfront. In golf, you are hitting a stationary ball. In cricket, you are reacting to a ball coming at you. When you watch people play both sports, you might think the swing patterns are the same – but they are not. Different dynamics come into play entirely.
Golf is a sport cricketers have naturally gravitated towards, partly because it is outdoors, partly because it is deeply challenging, and partly because nothing is quite as humbling. Nothing can be as much of a leveller as golf. It demands far more precision than cricket does.
The connection people draw between the two, though, has a lot to do with how batting has evolved. The older generation batted with their shoulders moving vertically. The modern batter has far more horizontal movement of the shoulders and hips, which is exactly what you see in golf.
Once a golfer hits the ball, they are completely square on. The shoulders, the hips, everything is in line with the ball. That is what gives everyone the leeway to talk about the two being similar.
And that shift in batting has everything to do with the rise of T20. The way current batters play, especially in white-ball cricket, is completely different from before. Earlier, it was all traditional Test cricket, and you needed to be extraordinary in your technical skills.
ALSO READ | Kapil Dev: ‘Had I played golf with cricket, I would have scored another 2,000 runs’
Now, T20 cricket is more about making an impact than proving your technique. The need is to play as aggressively as possible because you don’t have time to settle in and sort things out. You go out there, play, and hope it comes off on the day. Things can change suddenly, any which way.
Story continues below this ad
What that has done to batting stances is significant. In the old days, you only opened up your left hip when playing on the on-side or defending a bouncer. Generally, batters stayed side-on because the idea was to stay in control of every shot. But the idea now is to hit long. And for that, you have to spread yourself, have a broader base — that stability is what allows you to hit long.
One man embodied this before anyone else. Kevin Pietersen, even in Test cricket, was one of the greatest exponents of having a wider base and using that stability to hit long. He was very tall, so he had to work out exactly how wide his stance needed to be. He also brought in the switch hit.
ALSO READ | ‘Abhishek Sharma would have a great golf swing’: Golfer Ajeetesh Sandhu
But none of that happens without, first, the confidence to attempt it, second, the skill set to execute it, and third, the mindset that says I am not going to conform to the old, archaic method. In all my years of watching the game, I thought he was the one who did things genuinely differently.
Story continues below this ad
The conversation between golf and cricket is hardly new, of course. Cricketers have been finding their way to the fairway for a very long time. Brian Lara played golf right through his playing career. There is a famous story that the very morning he broke the record for the highest individual score, he went out and played a few holes before returning to the field to do it. Going further back, Erapalli Prasanna played golf during his playing days – remarkable because in those days, you wouldn’t have heard of golf in India at all. Hanumant Singh, too, was a deeply passionate golfer.
For me personally, playing golf and understanding its dynamics helped enormously in my coaching. I could look at body postures differently and understand biomechanics more easily, because I had experienced how two different sports demand completely different things from your body – different postures, different sets of movement. I am not saying everyone must take up golf. But golf has its own things to offer, and that cross-sport understanding genuinely sharpened how I saw the game.
It is part of something larger, really – a constant willingness to learn from every source available. We have taken principles from baseball throws, from how fielders run in and get into position. The pursuit has always been to find whatever helps you perform better. Golf fits right into that. And it always has.
(The author is a former India cricketer and head coach, who has taken up playing golf after retirement. He spoke to Venkata Krishna B).
