Should I always layup on a golf hole? I think looking at this question really does depend on you as an individual. What you want to do is learn where your strengths are and then play to those strengths. So if you’re playing for example a par-5 and you’ve hit the ball quite a long way then you don’t want to lay up, you want to go for the green take the driver off the tee even if you get into a situation where you can’t play an easy second shot and then you’ve then got to play back into position, you’ve still got a shot into the green for free. Whereas if you hit the driver and you get into a great position and then you can hit a wood onto the green for two for example, you’re in a much better position.

So in that situation you don’t want to lay-up. Again you might be playing for example a par-5 and there’s a stream running across the hole, if you hit your tee shot and you end up in the stream yes you’ve got to take the penalty drop but if you’re in a position that you can then hit the next shot on to the green, you’re on for three. So you haven’t really lost anything, you could have been on for two if you hadn’t got into the stream but you’re on for three. However in that situation if you laid up and finished just before the stream, so that you can now hit over for two, you are one shot better. So you’ve got to think about your course management when it comes to laying-up. You’re looking to take the most efficient way down the hole to play the hole, take the lowest number of shots. So consider all situations sometimes it is better to play a slightly safer shot and lay up to make an easy net shot into the hole and to take the fewest shots but other times, you want to go for it, you want to play aggressively. You don’t want to lay-up because that’s the best option. So it really depends on the situation that you’re in and how you feel about hitting those shots and just take each hole as it comes not every hole is the same. So make sure you’re looking at the actual hole and play to your strengths.