It’s hard to compare sports, but it’s something I’m always asked to do once people find out a little more about my background. Before I started working with Phil Mickelson and other golfers, I was strength and conditioning coach with the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres.

So, in the spirit of the World Baseball Classic and the PGA TOUR being in the heat of the Florida Swing, it seemed like a good time to offer a comparison of the two sports and answer the question I get so often: Can you compare baseball and golf?

The answer is, well, yes and no.

As far as the biomechanics of swinging the bat or throwing the ball vs. swinging a golf club, the planes of motion, movements and the actual sequence of the bodies in their respective athletic activities, golf and baseball are very different.

Don’t believe me? It’s well documented as, luckily for me when I was transitioning, there are volumes and volumes of research done on the biomechanics of the golf swing. After reading and experiencing the changes, it’s easy to see. Simple things like the average shoulder girdle rotation at the end of the backswing averages 102 degrees (Paul Geisler, Kinesiology of the Full Golf Swing, pg. 11) as opposed to a pitcher, during the cocking phase, external rotation of the shoulder capsule reaches somewhere around 180 degrees. The point to make with such statistics is the biomechanics through which the body moves within each sport is different.

But there are some similarities as well. When training athletes -- whether it’s a pitcher, a hitter or a golfer -- the actual training template used and the questions asked before training begins are very similar. First and foremost, strength and conditioning coaches will always focus on injury prevention. The simple goal is to breakdown the sport and the biomechanic actions involved while also reviewing the injury trends in the sport to determine what areas of the body are most commonly injured by athletes in that sport.

Roger Clemens is an avid golfer. (Feldman/WireImage)

In baseball, pitching is a great example. The major injuries involve the shoulder and the elbow. In golf, the most common injuries involve -- in order -- lower back, wrist and shoulder. Once you have that information in hard, then you can start to develop a strength and conditioning program. The first goal of the program is to prevent the athlete from becoming injured as a result of the stresses placed upon the body by that particular sport. Focusing on these areas allows us the chance to implement specific exercises to help avoid injuries as well as prepare the body for the respective sport.

Using pitchers as an example again, they need to strengthen and develop muscular endurance in the elbow and shoulder to prevent injuries from the stress places on the two joints in the pitching motion. In golf, the lower back is placed under a supreme amount of stress from the coiling and uncoiling and the sheer force produced by the golf swing, so invariably we’d look at lower back and core exercises to prevent injuries. If an athlete is injured and not able to perform at their optimal level, a decrease in performance will be seen as well as the possibility of not competing at all exists. Obviously, that’s not the desired outcome.

So once we understand the biomechanical movements of the sport and the areas often injured, we can focus on performance improvement. This is the point where we physically look to develop increased flexibility, balance, strength, endurance and power specific to their sports so they can perform at the highest level.

A pitcher has to be able to throw the ball with velocity as well as accuracy, so we develop a sports specific training program to prevent injury, increase velocity, accuracy, and durability. This is done through exercises, modalities, and training programs to strengthen, increase power and endurance within the body. So they can repeat a consistent throwing motion that will allow them to do that.

In golf, it’s similar as the golfer needs to have a repeatable golf swing that allows them the ability to make shots over and over in addition to creating club head speed. The golfer again requires a sports specific training program to prevent injury and improve performance. The golf swing is obviously different than the pitching motion. As a result the exercises and training programs of the golfer will be different than the pitcher.

For example, Golfers need different levels of flexibility within the body as well as other features such as power and endurance. This requires a different set of exercises to focus on different physical components and muscles.

Granted, those capacities, part of the bodies and muscles are different from athlete to athlete within their respective sports, but the template is very similar. Every athlete needs a certain level of flexibility, strength, endurance, and power to perform the athletic movements involved within their sport. Invariably increasing those levels of flexibility, strength, endurance, and power in a cross-specific manner related to their sport will induce an improved level of performance on the field and in competition.

For example, increasing the arm strength of a pitcher has the ability to increase the velocity of their pitches. Increasing the power outputs of the golfer has the ability to increase clubhead speed.

But for all their differences, there are some similarities. Obviously, there are many well known baseball players who are very good golfers. Chicago Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz are scratch golfers. The similarities in rotation of the body to create power have a lot in common. Plus the mental strength they possess from their sport comes in handy on the golf course. After facing Albert Pujols with the bases loaded, maybe hitting a 5-iron over water onto a green guarded by bunkers isn’t so intimidating.

So, while there are fundamental differences between baseball and golf and it’s not necessarily easy or fair to compare the sports, the preparation process in getting great athletes prepared is similar.