Laid Off At The Top Of Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Laid Off At The Top Of Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

There’s occasions when you'll be watching the golf on the TV at home and the commentators will be talking away as they do telling you about the different golfer swings. And they might use the phraseology laid off. So let's investigate what does laid off mean and what are the impacts to other golfers and how it can affect our swings with a laid off golf swing. So laid off will generally mean that we're aiming down a target line, picking a straight line here. But the club will not be pointing at the target at the top here.

It will actually be pointing out to the left hand side as a right handed golfer, and we would call this position a laid off position. Now you as a golfer might never have actually noted where your club points there and this is part of the problem. Is because it happens behind us when we're focused down here, it's happening back here. We very rarely get a good view of it. And even as a golfer, if I swing it up to the top in a bad position and then try and look at it, I might actually change the position of my swing as I turn around to look at it. So for a lot of golfers, they don't know where they are here. They don't know where they should be sometimes, unless they're using video cameras or even a mirror down the line. So if I’ve got a mirror where my camera is, I can swing up to the top. It’s a little bit easier, I can look in the mirror and I can see where my position is. Let’s just look at this idea of being laid off a little bit more in detail. The club ideally should be pointing about at my target if it's horizontal. If it isn't horizontal and it's above horizontal, it shouldn't be pointed at my target. It should actually be pointing to the left-hand side. So we have to understand this laid off concept in relation to the length of swing as well. So horizontally it should point at target. If it was longer than horizontal, it should actually point to the right of target. And if it's shorter than horizontal it should point to the left of target. So a true laid off position would be horizontal and pointing left. Now that would be laid off. So if it was on the horizontal but laid off, that would be a problem pointing out to the left hand side. If it was just a little bit short of horizontal and pointing way left, that would still be laid off. So let's firstly understand whether your swing is laid off or not. Now the best thing to go and do here is probably actually to go and take a golf lesson and say I think I am laid off, can you confirm it, because it isn't as simple as just checking that one position for yourself. Get yourself on a video camera with a PJ qualified golf professional, see where that golf club is. Because you don't really want to go messing around up here making massive fundamental changes. If you don't think you may get laid off and actually you are still hitting the ball quite well. So if you're striking it well and it just looks a bit weird here, maybe go and get it checked out first before you start making some massive fundamental changes. Because for a lot of golfers this laid off position can kind of work for them. But if you're struggling with the laid off position and you are not hitting the ball well, let's investigate now further why that might be. 2016-07-15

There’s occasions when you'll be watching the golf on the TV at home and the commentators will be talking away as they do telling you about the different golfer swings. And they might use the phraseology laid off. So let's investigate what does laid off mean and what are the impacts to other golfers and how it can affect our swings with a laid off golf swing. So laid off will generally mean that we're aiming down a target line, picking a straight line here. But the club will not be pointing at the target at the top here.

It will actually be pointing out to the left hand side as a right handed golfer, and we would call this position a laid off position. Now you as a golfer might never have actually noted where your club points there and this is part of the problem. Is because it happens behind us when we're focused down here, it's happening back here. We very rarely get a good view of it. And even as a golfer, if I swing it up to the top in a bad position and then try and look at it, I might actually change the position of my swing as I turn around to look at it.

So for a lot of golfers, they don't know where they are here. They don't know where they should be sometimes, unless they're using video cameras or even a mirror down the line. So if I’ve got a mirror where my camera is, I can swing up to the top. It’s a little bit easier, I can look in the mirror and I can see where my position is. Let’s just look at this idea of being laid off a little bit more in detail. The club ideally should be pointing about at my target if it's horizontal. If it isn't horizontal and it's above horizontal, it shouldn't be pointed at my target. It should actually be pointing to the left-hand side.

So we have to understand this laid off concept in relation to the length of swing as well. So horizontally it should point at target. If it was longer than horizontal, it should actually point to the right of target. And if it's shorter than horizontal it should point to the left of target. So a true laid off position would be horizontal and pointing left. Now that would be laid off. So if it was on the horizontal but laid off, that would be a problem pointing out to the left hand side. If it was just a little bit short of horizontal and pointing way left, that would still be laid off.

So let's firstly understand whether your swing is laid off or not. Now the best thing to go and do here is probably actually to go and take a golf lesson and say I think I am laid off, can you confirm it, because it isn't as simple as just checking that one position for yourself. Get yourself on a video camera with a PJ qualified golf professional, see where that golf club is. Because you don't really want to go messing around up here making massive fundamental changes.

If you don't think you may get laid off and actually you are still hitting the ball quite well. So if you're striking it well and it just looks a bit weird here, maybe go and get it checked out first before you start making some massive fundamental changes. Because for a lot of golfers this laid off position can kind of work for them. But if you're struggling with the laid off position and you are not hitting the ball well, let's investigate now further why that might be.