Where And Why Should The Club Be Pointed At The Top Of The Golf Swing Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles
Where And Why Should The Club Be Pointed At The Top Of The Golf Swing Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think one of the the most popular lines that the commentators like to use when they are watching the plays on the TV, when they are talking about the swings, they like to say ‘across the line’ and they like to say ‘laid off. ’ And I think a lot of the time that can confuse golfers because they are not necessarily sure what ‘across the line’ and ‘laid off’ actually means in their own swing. So if we look now exactly where the club should be pointed at the top of your swing, this explanation might help you.

As I set up down the line here I’m going to swing that club back up and at the top of my swing here; to all intent and purposes that club should be pointing at the target. That would be for most people a full and complete backswing pointing exactly back down at the target. So it’s horizontal, but it’s also pointing in the direction of the target. So I’ve got a flag over there, I swing to the top and the club points back down the target line. Now there’s two different positions that we could call from there as well. We could have ‘laid off.’ Laid off infers to the left-hand side for the right handed golfer and we could have ‘across the line.’ Across the line is pointing to the right-hand side of the target for the right handed golfer. So we could suggest we’ve got good, laid off, and across the line. So that isn’t overly complicated. The next section maybe, and this works on the fact that not all golf swings are going to finish perfectly perpendicular at 3 o’clock here. Now if you could consider every degree that that club goes up from the vertical position; it should also go to the left side from the horizontal plane. So if my club is only swinging to 2 o’clock here, it shouldn’t be pointing perfectly at target either, because if it was and then it was to go to 3 o’clock it would naturally come across the line. So we use the 3 o’clock pointing at target line as our base, if it’s above that line it also needs to be laid off by the same number of degrees. So if it’s 10 degrees up it should also be 10 degrees to the side. That’s why when you look at golfers that don’t have full backswings; they also don’t point it dead down the target line. But when you look at golfers who have longer than standard back swings the John Dalys, the Bubba Watsons, they’ll point it way across the line. But actually they are still in line with where they should be, it’s just longer and shorter than the horizontal plane. So hopefully that gives you an understanding of where that club should be and what ‘on line’, ‘laid off’, and ‘across the line’, all mean. 2014-03-28

I think one of the the most popular lines that the commentators like to use when they are watching the plays on the TV, when they are talking about the swings, they like to say ‘across the line’ and they like to say ‘laid off. ’ And I think a lot of the time that can confuse golfers because they are not necessarily sure what ‘across the line’ and ‘laid off’ actually means in their own swing. So if we look now exactly where the club should be pointed at the top of your swing, this explanation might help you.

As I set up down the line here I’m going to swing that club back up and at the top of my swing here; to all intent and purposes that club should be pointing at the target. That would be for most people a full and complete backswing pointing exactly back down at the target. So it’s horizontal, but it’s also pointing in the direction of the target. So I’ve got a flag over there, I swing to the top and the club points back down the target line. Now there’s two different positions that we could call from there as well. We could have ‘laid off.’ Laid off infers to the left-hand side for the right handed golfer and we could have ‘across the line.’ Across the line is pointing to the right-hand side of the target for the right handed golfer. So we could suggest we’ve got good, laid off, and across the line. So that isn’t overly complicated.

The next section maybe, and this works on the fact that not all golf swings are going to finish perfectly perpendicular at 3 o’clock here. Now if you could consider every degree that that club goes up from the vertical position; it should also go to the left side from the horizontal plane. So if my club is only swinging to 2 o’clock here, it shouldn’t be pointing perfectly at target either, because if it was and then it was to go to 3 o’clock it would naturally come across the line. So we use the 3 o’clock pointing at target line as our base, if it’s above that line it also needs to be laid off by the same number of degrees. So if it’s 10 degrees up it should also be 10 degrees to the side. That’s why when you look at golfers that don’t have full backswings; they also don’t point it dead down the target line. But when you look at golfers who have longer than standard back swings the John Dalys, the Bubba Watsons, they’ll point it way across the line. But actually they are still in line with where they should be, it’s just longer and shorter than the horizontal plane. So hopefully that gives you an understanding of where that club should be and what ‘on line’, ‘laid off’, and ‘across the line’, all mean.