DearChicago
Well-known member
Any recommendations for a reasonably priced watch? Cheers.
Golf Watch
- Thread starter DearChicago
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spanishman
Well-known member
My view is that golf sat navs are a better idea than watches. Having a larger screen than on a watch makes a difference for me. Particularly when you are looking at lay up distances and approximate pin positions on greens.
I use a Garmin Approach G30 at the moment. Have bought a rubber case and screen protectors to go with it. I am very happy with it. Not the latest model so not all the latest features. Like pairing with tags in clubs. However it is fine for me.
Mine came with a carabiner clip. I hang it over the handle of my trolley using this clip. Plus a bit of looped plastic cord attached to the trolley at a point lower than the handle. With the cord threaded through one of the holes close to the handle, where you are supposed to put a tee. This makes it easy to clip it on when I start and unclip it when I have finished playing.
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What is the watch for, scores or locations?
I just use my apple watch and the golfshot app, but to be honest in summer I used my phone more, held onto my trolley by a bike phone mount. I've just got the new apple watch linked to my sim and with a data pack so will probably use that more now, it does many jobs.
Be careful if you're half decent though, as a golf watch can do more harm than good for location accuracy. A phone/ watch/ golf GPS is only ever going to be 3-5m accuracy at best, and that's radius too. So you could be anywhere within a 6-10m circle, then you estimate the flag and could be 10-20 yards/ meters off. You could be 2-3 clubs out.
It's not easily possible to get <3m accuracy with standard phone/ watch/ golf watch/ sat nav GPS unless using some sort of additional GPS correction like WAAS/ SBAS/ DGPS (which I don't think any watches or sat navs have) but these are good for getting your location to 0.5m, then you have RTK which can get you to about 5-15mm accuracy but that's 15k worth of survey kit and a 1k yearly licence.
I just use my apple watch and the golfshot app, but to be honest in summer I used my phone more, held onto my trolley by a bike phone mount. I've just got the new apple watch linked to my sim and with a data pack so will probably use that more now, it does many jobs.
Be careful if you're half decent though, as a golf watch can do more harm than good for location accuracy. A phone/ watch/ golf GPS is only ever going to be 3-5m accuracy at best, and that's radius too. So you could be anywhere within a 6-10m circle, then you estimate the flag and could be 10-20 yards/ meters off. You could be 2-3 clubs out.
It's not easily possible to get <3m accuracy with standard phone/ watch/ golf watch/ sat nav GPS unless using some sort of additional GPS correction like WAAS/ SBAS/ DGPS (which I don't think any watches or sat navs have) but these are good for getting your location to 0.5m, then you have RTK which can get you to about 5-15mm accuracy but that's 15k worth of survey kit and a 1k yearly licence.
Centralscrutinizer
Well-known member
You just need to strap this to your golf cart OP 
DearChicago
Well-known member
DearChicago
Well-known member
Cheers for the advice everyone. It was mainly to help with approach shots as my club selection is not great. I’ll look into what you have recommend 
That's probably all true, but there are so many other factors which will affect the distance your shot travels - not least your ability to make clean contact consistently,and to hit it straight. Wind, slope up to the green, or down to the green (none of which you are allowed to measure), air temperature, whether the green is soft or hard, the speed of the green will all impact how far the ball will go. GPS is just an estimate really to help. A laser will give an exact yardage but is line of sight only.
or this
I might take mine to golf, next time
I use Arccos Caddie Smart Sensors paired to my phone. Id really recommend it, the caddie feature is very accurate and even does optimum strategy previews for courses before you play them. The app is brilliant, shows shots gained/lost on each area of your game so gives you good insight on what is costing you and what you need to practice.
Oh of course, not doubting that, not one bit, but adding unreliable GPS data to that is going to make it miles worse. You could think you've hit a bad shot, but it's actually been perfect, just a 20 yard GPS error.
Loads of amateurs fear getting the laser out, for fear of comments like "look at that guy playing of 28, thinking he's a pro", where as not knowing yardages of flags and clubs can massively hamper scores. Hitting 10 shots to greens 15 yards wrong due to GPS errors is probably 50 feet out as best, which is a 3 putt, rough or bunkers for most, especially adding in other factors. They could be losing 15 shots, just on GPS errors, and chasing their tails.
Even a good shot, bang on their gapped yardage means absolutely zero if relying on inaccurate GPS, for location, or not understanding the flag position.
Even a laser to a tree or front bunker edge and combining this with GPS would be better, but GPS is the only solution if you can't see where you're going, unless you're good at trigonometry
Just use GPS as a guide, but need to be well aware of it's pitfalls. Make sure the phone/ watch has line of site to satellites at all times or is stationary a few minutes before taking a shot and checking yardage. Don't check yardage on the move.
DearChicago
Well-known member
I was watching videos on this yesterday (mainly US). Do you pay a yearly subscription fee?
uncle_rico
Well-known member
I have an apple watch and use a free app called hole 19 which is more than fine for a rough idea of distance to front, middle and back of green. You can also use it on your phone and plot yardages on all of a hole.
Most of the other watches on the market will do the same.
If you want something more accurate get a scope.
Most of the other watches on the market will do the same.
If you want something more accurate get a scope.
spanishman
Well-known member
A watch or satnav reduces one of the many items of error in golf. For players like us knowing a distance to within 3 metres is a great help in club selection. For me it makes a big difference in my confidence in my club selections.
spanishman
Well-known member
A bit of nostalgia. In the 1980s I worked for a company called Scicon.
They worked on all sorts of projects while I was there. Including differential GPS where they used a device with a radio signal paired with GPS. So that a radio signal from a known location in the area would provide an estimate of current GPS error. To try to get location accuracy to within a metre. I believe that this was used in the oil industry.
Another fun one from the 80s. They produced one of the first ever computer systems to monitor the performance of a formula 1 racing car. It was only used in practice. As you had to remove one of the fuel tanks from the car to fit the computer system temporarily.
They worked on all sorts of projects while I was there. Including differential GPS where they used a device with a radio signal paired with GPS. So that a radio signal from a known location in the area would provide an estimate of current GPS error. To try to get location accuracy to within a metre. I believe that this was used in the oil industry.
Another fun one from the 80s. They produced one of the first ever computer systems to monitor the performance of a formula 1 racing car. It was only used in practice. As you had to remove one of the fuel tanks from the car to fit the computer system temporarily.
DGPS is around 300mm accuracy now, some less than 100mm, I think, and then RTK improves on that to 10mm accuracy or so, it's incredible. I pay about £800 a year for it, but it's worth it's weight in gold for construction.
You do yes, didn’t have to on the original version but I’m guessing that model wasn’t working for them! I still think it’s worth it, albeit I am a bit of a data/stats nerd!
Blf
Well-known member
I use a Garmin S2. Must be 5 years old now. Works well gives distances to front middle and back of the green. It does other stuff too but I'm not sure what because in only interested I'm distance for club selection.Its comfy on the wrist and light .
I really should read up on it
I really should read up on it