I think this is either a mistranslation, an obscure ‘localization’ into sports lingo, or an accurate translation from some rather obscure sports lingo in Japanese.
In basketball, a “lay up” is a basic kind of shot towards the hoop/net where the player usually throws it up against the backboard from underneath and to one side, so that the ball bounces gently off the back board and then falls into the net.
Metaphorically, a ‘lay up’ often means ‘a basic, ‘easy’ shot that just about anyone should be able to make without difficulty’. In other words, ‘just go ahead and do it, there’s nothing tricky about it, you’ve done it a million times before’.
So, perhaps this was intended to mean, “Given this course layout, the only thing to do is to work at it steadily, bit by bit, one ‘shot’ after another’.”
However, first of all, this is a weird way to use the metaphor, in my opinion. What does the ‘course layout’ have to do with how one approaches the work??? Doesn’t seem to have a natural connection, in my mind.
Secondly, it’s a sports reference that not everyone will be aware of, even in English. If the original Japanese didn’t contain a reference to basketball ‘lay ups’, then I don’t know where the reference came from.
Third, I checked my usual references (mainly Jisho 
) and couldn’t find any connection between 刻む and basketball, let alone ‘lay ups’. Further, doing a sentence search for ‘lay up’ in English didn’t turn up any results – so that’s a dead-end as far as my meagre references go. In other words, if 刻む somehow connects to basketball in Japanese, I could not find any evidence of that. (Not to say it doesn’t, just didn’t bother doing a ‘deep dive’ investigation.)
So, in my opinion, it would make sense to ask the Bunpro team to change the translation to something more natural. (* See below.) Or, perhaps just more literal. Like, as you suggested, ‘to etch it into my brain’, or whatever. (Or, last resort, perhaps change the original Japanese to something easier to translate?)
Finally, just out of my own curiosity, I’d like to hear about how so-called コースレイアウト can/does affect things in such a way that one Xよりほかない, whatever X happens to be. I mean, what even is コースレイアウト?
Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe they don’t mean an academic course at all, but some other kind of course, like a race course, or an obstacle course? In that case, maybe the ‘layout’ can influence things…
(*) Note: When encountering these kinds of things during reviews, if you have a clear idea that it’s a mistranslation or whatever, and aren’t necessarily looking for community feedback, you can report these kinds of things with the Report [
] button (might only be available in a web browser, not sure…). That’s the most direct way to ask/request the BP team for a bug fix / suggestion. Just FYI.
