A often overlooked golf strategy is laying up.

I just got back from playing a Pro-Am down in Las Vegas which was a lot of fun.  A Pro Am is an event where 1 pro and 3 or 4 amateurs will form a team and there score will be the two best net scores on each hole.  I like these events because I have a chance to coach players through lots of shots and give them things to think about over a certain shot.  I want to talk about the lay up shot.

Being it was Las Vegas there was plenty of holes on the three courses we played that had plenty of desert, bunkers or water short of the greens.  For some reason I was never really asked much by my playing partners where to lay up to.  If there were hazards or some sort of trouble in between the fairway and the green they would make sure to lay up WELL back of the trouble.  This is fine but on the majority of these holes the trouble started at 75 yards short of the green so they had plenty of room to layup to as their layup shots were 250 yards and more.

I will use one example in particular and explain how we can layup properly to help us with our following shot into the green and eliminate making big numbers.  Let’s say we have 275 yards to the green on a long par 4.  There is a hazard that is short of the green that starts 75 yards from the center of the green and goes all the way to the front of the green.  To reach the hazard we would have to hit a 200 yard shot.  Assuming that you are not on the PGA tour and cannot hit a 275 yard fairway wood over water, we must lay up.  What we want to think about now is  pin location and the yardage we want for our next shot.  We don’t just want to step up and hit a layup without thinking about our next shot into the green.

During the Pro-Am in Vegas my playing partners made sure to layup WELL back of the trouble which was very conservative but at the same time hurt their approach shots into the green as they had to hit a long iron and sometimes even a fairway wood.  I would have much rather seen them play a far more aggressive layup shot to ensure they hit a short iron into the green as more often than not, the hazards in front of the green were not really in play and made them over think the lay up shot.

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