Programming skills are really useful in physics, particularly if you want to do undergrad research, which is pretty much a requirement if going on to grad school is something you might want to do.
My HS son is working in an astrophysics lab at a UC, and his programming skills have gotten him on a bunch of projects in the lab. They need programming and other computer skills for controlling motors and lasers, data collection, data analysis, database stuff, interfacing devices, and more.
During the break between semesters he have been touring undergrads who have asked the professor about research positions. The professor said he should figure out if the people had any useful programming experience. If they didn’t, he was supposed to recommend that they take the intro to programming course through the CS department, because that would at least teach them some Python.