Why Do I Drive a Golf Ball Right and Shoot a Hockey Puck Left?

Slapshot and golf drive, both involve using an L shaped stick to strike an object on the ground with an end to send it as far and fast as possible. Why can I send a puck flying faster shooting with a left hand stance and a golf ball faster with a right hand stance? It seems to me that this is the case with most people yet it doesn’t really make sense. Or does it?

Not that I’m particularly great at either sport, but I’m right handed and there’s no way I could slap a hockey puck very hard with a lefty stance.

I wouldn’t say you’re unusual though. There are a lot of lefty golfers who are righthanded for many other sports. I would assume that you are using different muscle groups for hockey rather than golf. At least a few.

deevee, I just wanted to say I’m the exact same way. Left handed in hockey and right handed in golf.

In fact, I’m right handed at everything except for hockey, dealing cards and using a knife and fork. I’ve always wondered how my brain delegated these functions.

I don’t know that much about either sport, but I’ve got a mental image of a golf shot being a big controlled swing and a hockey (ice, for two obvious reasons) shot being a quick wristy flick. That being so, it makes a certain sense that if your dominant hand is the left, it should be the top hand for the golf shot – where it provides control – and the bottom hand for the hockey shot – where it gives the sudden shove.

Being English, I’ll just toss in that cricket is full to the brim with right-arm bowlers who bat left-handed and vice versa. It’s a similar principle: many players bat with the dominant hand on top of the handle. It’s nothing like universal though; if I were pushed I would assert, without evidence, that right/right is the commonest and left/left the rarest.

I’ve never played hockey in my life, but I golf righty, throw righty, and bat lefty. Also, my tennis backhand is far, far superior to my forehand.

I don’t know anything about the mechanics of a hockey shot, but for golf, I find that the most important parts of my swing are a driving of the knees into the hips, and a inside-out swing path with my arms as fully extended as possible, and as far as the hands go, the top, or left, hand is much more important in the swing path and acceleration than is the right. On a golf swing, I never put any effort into turning over my wrists.

With a bat, the driving of the hips is also there, but I get the feeling that the bottom hand – also the left hand – is more important for driving the bat forward, whereas the the extended right arm serves as kind of a fulcrum or base over which my left hand is consciously made to turn over. I get the sense that the completion of the wrist turnover in the baseball swing happens earlier than in a golf swing.

The commonality of the left hand driving the swing relating to the turnover of the wrists might have something to do with one’s preferred stance in various sports, but that’s just a WAG. For the record, I’m a much better golfer than I am a batter, so I might have fundamental errors in my baseball swing.

I am just like the OP; I bat, golf, throw, and write right-handed, but I hold a hockey stick left-handed.

It (obviously) feels completely natural to me, even though I’m not sure I can put a finger on why.

My fairly limited experience, though, is that this fairly uncommon. Playing rec-league floor hockey in college, for example, there were only two left-handed players on our team - me, and one guy who did everything left-handed (I think).

Left-handed sticks were tough to come by, which besides being really annoying suggested little demand for them. All of the “everything else” righties I knew also played hockey right-handed.

I felt special. :wink:

I think hockey’s the wierd element in the equation. Golf, in my experience, is the same for almost everyone, in that righties usually play from the left of the tee (with their right arm facing the green) and vice versa. But in hockey I think there are 2 ways to shoot the puck. If you’re like me, you put your dominant hand at the top of the stick and ‘row’ your shots and keep your inferior hand pretty stable. Or other people like to put their dominant hand low on the stick and use it to get the flick action used in wrist shots, and use the muscles to gain momentum in slap shots.
I’ve done both and found that one works better for me. But for golf, there’s no comparison.

I throw right handed yet bowl a cricket ball left handed. Work that one out :confused:

Nothing factual to contribute, just more anecdotal, but I am the exact same way as well, and I’ve been wondering about this for years so I appreciate the thread.

I’m righty for everything I can think of, including golf, but with the exception of hockey.