I think tennis serve. I sometimes have a streak of 5 or 6 aces then i have a prolonged streak of double faults. My golf swing is perfect and self taught.
“My golf swing is perfect and self taught.” Why on earth would you post that: A) It’s not true B) Even if you’re scratch, you still sound stupid and arrogant.
golf swing for sure
For a tennis serve, almost all of the launch conditions are the same each time (save weather). This is untrue for a golf swing. Each time you set up to the ball you have to deal with different variables (lie, turf conditions, ball above/below you, etc). Any equation with more variables introduces more difficulty. To take it to the next level you could look at hitting a baseball. Harder still. But I am like you. Very streaky server. I also can’t figure out why I suck so bad at bowling.
coming from a former college tennis player (and someone who has tried to play golf once). Golf swing is much harder.
I don’t play golf so I can’t really compare, but I have to say hitting a serve correctly is pretty challenging. Over 95 percent of the players I see at clubs and at public courts can’t properly pronate their wrists on the serves. Sure they can still get the ball in the box (sometimes), but for most players at the 4.0 skill level or below, the serve is more of a liability than a weapon, especially those “dinky” second serves with no spin to help contain their trajectory. So there is a real difference between hitting *a* serve versus hitting a real one.
Actually, now that I think about it more, I’m going to say that a very good golf swing is harder to attain. I say this because the outcome of golf, for the most part, is dependent upon yourself; sure, you’re playing “against” other people, but by and large, assuming a level playing field, how well you do in a tournament is defined pretty much by how well you play for yourself and minimizing errors or variances as much as possible (at least based on how I understand the game of golf). Compared to golf, I think there is more room for error in tennis. For example, the idea of hitting a spin or kick serve is to actually increase your margin of error so that you can get the ball in the box. Missing a first serve is a liability, but missing a second serve can be deadly. Spin allows you to take some pace off the ball just to keep it in. Maybe one’s second serve is not a “weapon,” but at least getting it in forces your opponent to return the ball as opposed to giving away a free point. Secondly, how effective you are depends on who you play against. I can have one of my best service games but if it’s against one of the other guys on my team, I can potentially lose on any given day simply because we had so much skill and depth. On the other hand, if I’m playing against your typical club or casual player, I can hit some balls out of the sweet spot range or even near the frame of my racket and still manage a couple aces per game. Basically, how effective your serve is depends on who you’re matched up against. However, assuming a level playing field in both tennis and golf, I would still say that it’s harder to hit a golf because of the precision and accuracy required on every shot. With the exception of the very highest levels of tennis, it’s really a game of consistency, and playing a high percentage game often matters more than being able to blast winning shots all the time (since most people cannot do the latter, but a keen understanding of strategy and becoming a “student of the game” can enable you to do the former – or at least think that you can). As a tennis player, you want to hang in the point and play the percentages until you have a ball that you can hit a winner on, simply because it’s so hard to hit the “perfect” shot. In golf, you have no choice but to minimize the amount of strokes you take on the course if you hope to win.
Definitely golf. I’ve been playing all of my life and am still perfecting my swing. There are just too many more variables that have to be perfect for a golf swing when compared to a tennis serve. There’s a lot less room for error as well. The slightest open club face, inside out swing, hips late, shoulders early, etc… will send your ball who knows where. Even on the PGA Tour a Great driving average, meaning you hit your first shot into the fairway on a Par 4 or 5, is ~75%. Jim Fuyrk was self taught so I hope your swing is not as ugly as his.
Golf Swing
mwvt9 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Any equation with more variables introduces more > difficulty. > > To take it to the next level you could look at > hitting a baseball. Harder still. I agree with this. Some people say that the hardest action in professional sports to execute is hitting a baseball. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it: a hitter with a batting average of .300 (equivalently, a 30% hits-to-at bat success rate) is a solid ballplayer by any definition; a hitter with a batting average of .330 (a 33% success rate) will be a top 5 hitter in any given season, and truly legendary if he can sustain it over the course of a career. Imagine what kind of jobs you could get in finance with a 33% stockpicking success rate…? Probably not too many.
I think a .300 hitter is amazing. Not only does he have to react to an athlete hurling a ball at roughly 90mph (who has spent his whole life training to make sure this guy can’t make contact) in like a nanosecond, But then if the batter does somehow make contact there are a bunch of guys out there waiting to scoop up his hit.
Chipper Jones was batting .420 earlier in the season but he’s fallen off the wagon and onto the DL along with every other Brave. Only a handful of people have ever batted above .420 in a season. It’s almost impossible to sustain that kind of average. Not many can keep it going all season.
It is also important to point out that the golf swing acts a bit like a differential equation. As one gets better at golf their technique improves and they are able to generate more clubhead speed. This increased clubhead speed brings greater variance of shots with the same “level” of error. For example, a club face that is open 4 degrees at 75 mph might miss the target by 15 yards while at 120 mph (tour driver speed) you might miss by 40 yards. The game is just damn hard.
Isn’t relying on the batting avg a little misleading? Every game people hit line drives directly to the fielders, which still counts as an out even though the hitter did a good job. So actually *hitting* the baseball isn’t as tough, what’s tough is getting a *hit*.
naturallight Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Isn’t relying on the batting avg a little > misleading? Every game people hit line drives > directly to the fielders, which still counts as an > out even though the hitter did a good job. So > actually *hitting* the baseball isn’t as tough, > what’s tough is getting a *hit*. There are a whole bunch of real baseball statistics that measure a player’s value more accurately than batting average. Things that help in this analysis are BABIP, OPS+, VORP, and a whole list of other stats that generally fall under the label “sabermetrics,” though most smart people call it “basic statistics.” Batting average is an interesting stat, but generally useless, in my opinion. Incidentally, I don’t think it really makes much sense to compare the difficulty of a golf swing or a tennis serve with that of a baseball swing. In baseball, so much more of a player’s skill depends on his ability to determine where the ball is and react to that information as quickly as possible. Then he has to react to changes in the direction of the ball. This really isn’t too similar to a tennis serve or a golf swing. I think pitching a baseball is more similar.
I vaguely remember reading that pole vaulting and a golf swing are the most mechanically challenging movements in sports… FWIW…
For me, a tennis serve is tough, but a good golf swing is a lot harder. Of course, the fact that golf bores me to tears doesn’t help much.
“So actually *hitting* the baseball isn’t as tough, what’s tough is getting a *hit*.” On this note, it’s worth stating that in a typical baseball game, about 7 of a team’s 27 total outs are typically from strikeouts. So 20/27 guys who were out put the ball in play, plus all the guys who got hits. So conservatively call that 28/35 hitters for a team in a game putting the ball into play.
numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Actually, now that I think about it more, I’m > going to say that a very good golf swing is harder > to attain. I say this because the outcome of golf, > for the most part, is dependent upon yourself; > sure, you’re playing “against” other people, but > by and large, assuming a level playing field, how > well you do in a tournament is defined pretty much > by how well you play for yourself and minimizing > errors or variances as much as possible (at least > based on how I understand the game of golf). > > Compared to golf, I think there is more room for > error in tennis. For example, the idea of hitting > a spin or kick serve is to actually increase your > margin of error so that you can get the ball in > the box. Missing a first serve is a liability, but > missing a second serve can be deadly. Spin allows > you to take some pace off the ball just to keep it > in. Maybe one’s second serve is not a “weapon,” > but at least getting it in forces your opponent to > return the ball as opposed to giving away a free > point. Secondly, how effective you are depends on > who you play against. I can have one of my best > service games but if it’s against one of the other > guys on my team, I can potentially lose on any > given day simply because we had so much skill and > depth. On the other hand, if I’m playing against > your typical club or casual player, I can hit some > balls out of the sweet spot range or even near the > frame of my racket and still manage a couple aces > per game. > > Basically, how effective your serve is depends on > who you’re matched up against. However, assuming a > level playing field in both tennis and golf, I > would still say that it’s harder to hit a golf > because of the precision and accuracy required on > every shot. With the exception of the very highest > levels of tennis, it’s really a game of > consistency, and playing a high percentage game > often matters more than being able to blast > winning shots all the time (since most people > cannot do the latter, but a keen understanding of > strategy and becoming a “student of the game” can > enable you to do the former – or at least think > that you can). As a tennis player, you want to > hang in the point and play the percentages until > you have a ball that you can hit a winner on, > simply because it’s so hard to hit the “perfect” > shot. In golf, you have no choice but to minimize > the amount of strokes you take on the course if > you hope to win. Numi, it’s still slow at work I guess? 
Golf swing, hands down. Think about it. Let’s assume your average tennis pro is serving at ~120mph. They have to get the ball inside the court (~60 from the service line by ~15 wide, these are estimates and if someone knows the exact dimensions of a tennis court please correct me). The average touring pro has a swing speed ~110mph, and the ball velocity ~140mph (Tiger is north of 120mph and 160mph when he really goes at it). The golf ball is traveling ~300 yards, and your trying to hit a fairway ~30 yards wide. A 1 degree angle of deflection in the club makes a huge difference when you’re dealing with those distances. I respect all athletes, but golf is such an unnatural swing, it takes a lot more coordination and hand-to-eye skill given all of the moving parts. Go to your average driving range and see how bad some of those guys/girls are. I’d bet you could take most of them to the tennis court and they would be much better there. It’s taken me about 10 years to get my handicap to ~12, and I played college baseball. Golf is much harder, for sure!