I am not a skilled golfer since I have probably only played on a course less than 10 times and truthfully I enjoyed Putt Putt Golf more. Recently I considered playing again and taking a serious approach to learning the game so I picked up a book at the library on the subject.
The title is Golf Essentials for Dummies by Gary McCord with John Huggan and it offers a great introduction to learning golf. While going through the first chapter on the drive I began to notice similarities to the tennis forehand.
Here a some examples:
The contact point for a drive is out in front of the lead foot much like a forehand. The purpose of this is the same as a forehand in that you need this contact point out in front to get behind the shot but also to allow for a full weight transfer from the rear to the front that is coordinated with a hip rotation. In the golf swing this allows the club face to reach vertical at the precise moment of impact for maximum range. In a tennis forehand the same effect of having a vertical racket face gives you superb directional control while allowing the application of spin and velocity.
Other Comparisons:
Hitting golf drives is much like serving. You do not have to run to the ball but instead are able to set your platform for striking a ball. In the case of golf the ball is fixed and in the case of tennis you can approach that similarly by tossing to an ideal contact point where the ball reaches that at the apex of flight.
In both of these instances you can remain at the place where you start the action as part of a training session that includes multiple repetitive actions
Given a choice of Golf or Tennis I'd choose tennis but note the similarities and use them to your advantage for training.
