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Glossary of Golfing Terms - L

This page of our glossary of golfing terms is for golfing terms which begin with the letter 'L'.

• Ladies tees - The par of golf courses and individual holes is rated differently for women than men. Ladies' tees are normally set ahead of those for men but may occasionally be set farther back, perhaps to make a par four into a five.
• Lag - Used especially of a downhill putt or any occasion when the player is more concerned to get his putt close to the hole rather than to hole it. Also used of shots through the green.
• Laminated - Used of wooden clubs where the heads are made of thin layers of wood, glued together, rather than solid persimmon. Such clubs are usually less likely to crack or to be badly affected by damp.
• Lateral water hazard - This lies parallel to the line of play rather than across it and is lateral when the committee decides it is impracticable to drop a ball behind the hazard and keep the spot at which the ball last crossed the margin between the player and the hole.
• Left-hand below right - Few players  Sewsunker Sewgolum of South Africa was the outstanding example - have managed to play right-handed but with the left hand below the right on the grip for all shots. Many more have found it an effective grip for putting, partly because it lets them pull the putter into the ball more easily.
• Let through - When one game on a course waves another through, usually because of slower play or a lost ball.
• Lie - The position of the ball in relation to the ground beneath. A good lie usually means that most of the ball is visible. A lie becomes progressively worse as the ball settles down in the grass or sand. The term is also used of the way a clubhead sits on the turf. This depends on the angle formed by the clubhead with the shaft and whether or not the player stands near or far from the ball or if he holds his hands high or low. Players often have the lie of their iron clubs checked if they think one or more is either too upright or flat.
• Lift and drop - The action of a player when, under penalty or not, he picks up his ball and drops it in a place and manner laid down in the rules of golf.
• Like as well - A term used when each side has played the same number of strokes. The distance from the hole may be vastly different.
• Line - The direction a putt should take for the hole, taking any borrow into account. For longer shots it is the direction in which the ball should be hit, taking hazards into account, the length a player can hit and also the position for the shot which will follow.
• Links - This word probably derives from the Old English 'hlinc', meaning ridge, although others see the term as meaning land which forms a link between the sea and land fit for agriculture further inland. Typically linksland is low-lying, with sand dunes and bristly varieties of salt resistant grasses. Because almost all early British golf was played on such land, the term came to mean 'golf course', even if the holes ran through parkland or water meadow. Today the word is used correctly; other kinds of land on which courses are laid out are called 'downland', 'heath' and so on.
• Lip - The edge of the hole. A putt can be said to have 'stopped on the lip', 'lipped out' or 'lipped the hole'.
• Lob - A short, high shot played with a lofted club which will run little because of its angle of descent more than backspin.
• Local knowledge - The knowledge a player gains through experience of golf on his home course of how to play particular shots.
• Local rules - Rules made by a club committee to deal with special conditions on the course.
• Loft - The angle a clubface is set back from the vertical. Among the irons, the loft increases from the No. one to the sand wedge. The more loft a club has the higher the ball will go into the air and the shorter distance it will travel.
• Lofting iron (or lofter) - An iron of about the loft of a modem No. six which generally replaced the baffy.
• Long game - Use of the woods and long irons.
• Long right arm - The term used to describe a golfer who drives his right hand and arm long and low through the ball.
• Loop - In even the best golf swings the club does not go back and down again on exactly the same area. When the difference between the two is exaggerated, it is called a loop.
• Loose impediments - These are natural objects not fixed, growing or adhering to the ball and, except in hazards, may be removed as long as the ball does not move when this is done. Sand and loose soil can be deemed loose impediments on greens but not elsewhere and snow and ice anywhere.
• Lost ball - A ball is lost if it cannot be found within five minutes of the player or his caddie searching for it. A player may also declare a ball lost without searching for it and a ball becomes lost if a provisional ball is played beyond the point where the original ball disappeared.