Does Playing Guitar Make you a better golfer???

[2bGood]

Totally random thought, but after a bad left wrist injury (half way through a 4 month rehab) I noticed the wrist positions needed to play guitar are not too different than those needed for golf (two things I can't do right now).

 

So I was thinking that playing guitar is good for left wrist/hand strength and flexibility and this has to be good for golf.

 

Thoughts???

[MadGolfer76]

Usually musical training and golf go well together, in my experience. You need specific awareness of what your hands are doing and how much pressure you are applying in different places. Sports are great too, but many of them are just raw performance, where manipulating a musical instrument often gets into the nitty-gritty elements that compliment golf very well.

 

Plus, better tempo if you do it right...

[northgolf]

Self curbed. Post edit to keep from offended the offended.

[Man_O_War]

so long as you don't over work the hands that feed you

[musclefront]

Yes, and just a better person overall ?

[baudi]

Yes!

Joe Satriani's swinging technique is not of this earth.

[oikos1]

Of course it should!

[Hawkeye77]

I just wish becoming a better golfer made me a better guitar player, darn it.

 

Funny thing, I have to actually practice and work on fundamentals - where have I heard that before?

 

BTW, I'd forfeit a considerable amount of whatever to be able to play by ear. Put me at a keyboard with music and there's pretty much nothing I can't play or could learn, but no ability to just sit down and start reeling off tunes. Guitar - give me some tablature, lol, but it's work and I can memorize a few things, but the "keyboard" on the guitar is still a bit of a mystery.

 

I'm envious of folks with that ability. Maybe they are just "scratch" from birth.

 

 

[Hawkeye77]

And 2b, just for you ----- I did have a friend who was really good at it, taught me how to hand toss pizza a few years ago - a skill my daughters enjoyed watching me try and sometimes fail on special occasions! I still practice with a bar towel once in awhile - it's fun!

 

Good luck with the wrist!

 

 

[MelloYello]

My hunch is no.

 

I play a lot of intricate guitar stuff: Vai, Satriani, Petrucci, EVH, etc and I don't think there's a connection. Much like typing, playing guitar requires dexterity rather than raw strength. It's really about your fingers.

 

By contrast, playing golf doesn't really have anything to do with the dexterity of your fingers. In fact, if anything, I think playing guitar can actually make your hands a bit more "delicate." Having played a lot of guitar (not to mention typed a lot) I tend to have thinner fingers and more supple hands than most guys.

 

Guitar tends to build up finger strength, but not hand/grip strength. If you look at the hands of an Eddie Van Halen or an Eric Johnson, it's clear they have very good strength in their fingers but that really doesn't translate at all to holding a golf club. Golf requires strength in your wrists and grip which is totally different from finger strength/dexterity.

 

Honestly, I think the two almost work against each other because developing one tends to require putting the other on hold.

 

In comparison with the finesse that's required to play a stringed-instrument like a guitar or a violin, golf is much more violent. It would be far more practical to lift some weights thereby improving the overall strength and stability you have in your hands and grip.

[TheSouthernGentleman]

LOL! Picking my nose makes me a better golfer.

[larrybud]

When I used to play the drums I always thought my rhythm was better on the course.

[2bGood]

> @northgolf said:

> Self curbed. Post edit to keep from offended the offended.

 

Sorry I missed it, I am sure it was funny to those of us not easily offended.

 

> @Hawkeye77 said:

> And 2b, just for you ----- I did have a friend who was really good at it, taught me how to hand toss pizza a few years ago - a skill my daughters enjoyed watching me try and sometimes fail on special occasions! I still practice with a bar towel once in awhile - it's fun!

>

> Good luck with the wrist!

>

>

 

> @Hawkeye77 said:

> And 2b, just for you ----- I did have a friend who was really good at it, taught me how to hand toss pizza a few years ago - a skill my daughters enjoyed watching me try and sometimes fail on special occasions! I still practice with a bar towel once in awhile - it's fun!

>

> Good luck with the wrist!

>

>

 

Thanks. Just spent a month in Italy. They get it, pizza is not broken, no need to to try to make it better and of course the best pizza in the world is there.

[2bGood]

> @northgolf said:

> Self curbed. Post edit to keep from offended the offended.

 

I hope the joke was at least original??? Everyone’s wrist injury joke seems to be painfully predictable.

[Soloman1]

I think a drummer would make a better golfer than a guitar player.

 

How do you know if the lead guitar player is knocking at your door? He goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

 

How do you know if the drum kit is level on the stage or riser? The drummer drools out of both sides of his mouth.

[JJK947]

> @Hawkeye77 said:

> I just wish becoming a better golfer made me a better guitar player, darn it.

>

> Funny thing, I have to actually practice and work on fundamentals - where have I heard that before?

>

> BTW, I'd forfeit a considerable amount of whatever to be able to play by ear. Put me at a keyboard with music and there's pretty much nothing I can't play or could learn, but no ability to just sit down and start reeling off tunes. Guitar - give me some tablature, lol, but it's work and I can memorize a few things, but the "keyboard" on the guitar is still a bit of a mystery.

>

> I'm envious of folks with that ability. Maybe they are just "scratch" from birth.

>

>

 

I'm one of those people, can play pretty much anything by ear on guitar before you get into virtuoso-type stuff or obscure alternate tunings. I'm limited to chord work on piano but can figure that out very quickly as well. I think it just comes from starting at an early age listening to a lot of music and lack of classical training and never leaning to read music. Playing by ear was a necessity.

 

Having spent an exorbitant amount of time on both guitar and golf, I don't really see and physical correlations at all.

[musclefront]

> @Hawkeye77 said:

> I just wish becoming a better golfer made me a better guitar player, darn it.

>

> Funny thing, I have to actually practice and work on fundamentals - where have I heard that before?

>

> BTW, I'd forfeit a considerable amount of whatever to be able to play by ear. Put me at a keyboard with music and there's pretty much nothing I can't play or could learn, but no ability to just sit down and start reeling off tunes. Guitar - give me some tablature, lol, but it's work and I can memorize a few things, but the "keyboard" on the guitar is still a bit of a mystery.

>

> I'm envious of folks with that ability. Maybe they are just "scratch" from birth.

>

>

 

Nope. 6 hours of daily practice in my teens. Wish I would’ve golfed that much instead as I now golf all the time and play guitar in a band but never practice because I don’t have to. Wish it was other way around ha

[scooterhd2]

you know whats good?... bouncing the ball off the clubface. i swore this off for so many years as a useless driving range trick. but it does wonders for hand eye coordination at a club lengths distance, timing, control of the clubface. makes your wedge game better especially.

[Barfolomew]

Hell yeah I rock out playin guitar and sing in a garage band and my golf is off the hook...

[Mike Divot]

How do you know when there's a singer at the front door? They can't find the key and don't know when to come in.

 

Why do most golfers make lousy jazz musicians? They can't swing and have bad tempo.

 

Why can jazz musicians only play doglegs? Everything else is too straight (man).

 

Anyway ... everyone knows you can't play good jazz unless you have cryo-treated shafts (coz they're cool, baby) and your lie angles bent flat -- so they're not too uptight. I mean, upright.

[Yuck]

If I play guitar, while chewing gum, doing squats and watching instructional videos simultaneously, how long before I am scratch. (Assuming I have fitted, tour issue clubs of course)

[xkilgorextroutx]

Been playing drums for over 30 years, and guitar for over 20.

 

Still haven't broken 90 out on the course LOL!!!!

[Barfolomew]

> @xkilgorextroutx said:

> Been playing drums for over 30 years, and guitar for over 20.

>

> Still haven't broken 90 out on the course LOL!!!!

 

....hope you havent been playin golf longer then music lol!

[golfho50]

Does playing golf make you a better Guitarist?

 

I once saw Eddie Van Halen play in a Charity tournament and there was -10 correlation between

his guitar ability and golf game.

[jobin]

Correlations typically go from between zero and 100. To be minus 10 takes some mighty poor golf coz van Halen is good on guitar.

[DaveLeeNC]

> @jobin said:

> Correlations typically go from between zero and 100. To be minus 10 takes some mighty poor golf coz van Halen is good on guitar.

 

FWIW, the correlation coefficient varies between +1 (perfectly correlated) and -1 (perfectly anti-correlated) where 0 is no correlation.

 

dave

[DaveLeeNC]

I practice as much now on my classical guitar (a couple hours per day - nylon strings and no pick) as I used to put in on the range. I don't see or feel much of a relationship between the 2 activities.

 

dave

 

ps. I will add that putting in more time on my guitar will almost certainly improve my level of play (on the guitar). More time on the range (given that I was already something of a range rat) does not yield a predictable result (for me).

 

 

[xkilgorextroutx]

> @Barfolomew said:

> > @xkilgorextroutx said:

> > Been playing drums for over 30 years, and guitar for over 20.

> >

> > Still haven't broken 90 out on the course LOL!!!!

>

> ....hope you havent been playin golf longer then music lol!

 

Oh heck no - only picked up the game about 6 years ago and I average 20 rounds or less per year. Too many kids with too many sports & activities.

[MelloYello]

> @Yuck said:

> If I play guitar, while chewing gum, doing squats and watching instructional videos simultaneously, how long before I am scratch. (Assuming I have fitted, tour issue clubs of course)

 

You have to do that weird leg-raise thing in a loincloth a la Tom Kite.

[MelloYello]

> @DaveLeeNC said:

> I practice as much now on my classical guitar (a couple hours per day - nylon strings and no pick) as I used to put in on the range. I don't see or feel much of a relationship between the 2 activities.

>

> dave

>

> ps. I will add that putting in more time on my guitar will almost certainly improve my level of play (on the guitar). More time on the range (given that I was already something of a range rat) does not yield a predictable result (for me).

>

>

 

The only place where time spent "noodling" will almost always benefit a golfer regardless of the what, where, and how of practicing is in short game.

 

I would wager that no matter the player, no matter the situation, they are bound to show improvement if they head to the short game practice area and drop a few balls down.

 

But yeah, time spent on the driving range is not guaranteed to do anything but keep you loose.