Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Systems

The Golf Buddy World Plat­inum GPS Range Finder is one of the more full-featured golf GPS sys­tems. It fea­tures a 3 inch color touch­screen and comes pre­loaded with 40,000 courses from around the world. There are no sub­scrip­tion or annual fees.

Sim­i­lar to the GolfLogix GPS-8, the Golf Buddy World Plat­inum auto­mat­i­cally detects what course and hole you are on. It will also auto­mat­i­cally advance from hole to hole. This may seem like a small fea­ture, but not hav­ing to man­u­ally advance to the next hole lets you con­cen­trate more on your play.

The Golf Buddy World Plat­inum includes dis­tances to the front, cen­ter and back of every green along with yardages to bunkers and haz­ards. Layup yardages are also shown for every hole. One of the best fea­tures is the abil­ity to add cus­tom tar­gets which allows you to add a point from any­where on a hole.

The hole map will auto­mat­i­cally zoom in and out depend­ing on where you are at. The green also rotates to cor­rectly dis­play the angle you are approach­ing from. Four player scor­ing and the abil­ity to record the dis­tance of your shots round out this full-featured golf GPS sys­tem.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf Buddy, Golf GPS Systems

The Garmin Approach S1 is some­thing new in the world of golf GPS sys­tems. It is a flex­i­ble sports watch with an inte­grated GPS receiver that shows you the dis­tance to the front, cen­ter and back of every green for over 15,000 courses in the US and Canada. The Approach S1 can also dis­play indi­vid­ual shot dis­tances mak­ing it a great func­tion­ing golf GPS system.

The 15,000+ courses are pre­loaded with no sub­scrip­tion fees or down­loads needed. This means the Approach S1 is ready to go out of the box.

The Garmin Approach S1, besides being a golf GPS sys­tem, serves very well as an every­day watch. It fea­tures an odome­ter that can track your dis­tance both on and off the course. An alarm, recharge­able lithium ion bat­tery, and auto­matic time and time zone set­ting round out the features.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Systems

Garmin recently debuted the Approach G3 golf GPS sys­tem. The G3 is billed as the Approach G5’s pocket size lit­tle brother. It’s basi­cally only a half of an inch shorter than the G5 but weighs a con­sid­er­able 1.5 ounces less. The Approach G3 also retails for $100 less than the G5.

Sounds great! Why would any­one not choose the new Approach G3 over the proven Approach G5? There are two rea­sons why one would still choose the G5.

The new Garmin Approach G3 has a 2.6 inch screen while the G5 has a 3 inch screen. Since we are talk­ing about touch­screen golf GPS sys­tems, screen size is a major fac­tor in usability.

The biggest rea­son the G5 is still supe­rior is it’s new stat track­ing capa­bil­ity. You can now track putts per round, fair­ways and greens hit, and the aver­age dis­tance of every club in your bag on the G5. Even though these new fea­tures are deliv­ered to exist­ing G5’s with a firmware update, they have been made not avail­able on the Approach G3.

The Garmin Approach G3 is a great choice if you’re look­ing for a smaller, lighter touch­screen golf GPS sys­tem and can live with­out the stat track­ing. The G3 has all the other great fea­tures of the G5 includ­ing dis­tance to any point on the hole, man­ual pin posi­tion­ing and course preview.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Garmin, Golf GPS Systems

I’ve updated the Golf GPS Com­par­i­son page! In addi­tion to adding images, I’ve also changed the lay­out which will more eas­ily enable me to add future golf GPS systems!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Systems

Garmin recently announced a free soft­ware update for its pop­u­lar Approach G5 golf GPS sys­tem. The update will allow users to track key stats for their round. This new func­tion­al­ity fur­ther builds on the Garmin Approach G5 being one of the best golf GPS sys­tems avail­able today.

Fair­ways hit, greens hit in reg­u­la­tion, putts per round and how far you hit each club can now be tracked on the Approach G5. Track­ing your stats is essen­tial to improv­ing your game.  Track­ing and ana­lyz­ing your stats tells you exactly what area of your game to con­cen­trate on at the prac­tice range.

These new fea­tures are built upon the Approach G5’s exist­ing score­card func­tion­al­ity. You can track the addi­tional stats for one or mul­ti­ple play­ers of your four­some. Answer­ing two addi­tional ques­tions per hole is all that is required to take advan­tage of the new stat tracking.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Garmin, Golf GPS Systems

The Izzo SWAMI 1500 is the least expen­sive golf GPS sys­tem on the mar­ket. It dis­plays the dis­tance to the front, cen­ter and back of every green which is the most ben­e­fi­cial fea­ture that golf GPS sys­tems can offer.

Hit­ting more greens in reg­u­la­tion is the key to scor­ing lower. You will hit more greens in reg­u­la­tion if you start look­ing at the dis­tance to the green as a yardage range instead of a sin­gle yardage. Know­ing the dis­tance to the front, cen­ter and back of every green is a great tool for hit­ting more greens.

The Izzo SWAMI 1500 dis­plays the yardages with large, easy-to-read num­bers. Another nice touch is that it auto­mat­i­cally knows what course you are on upon pow­er­ing up. The SWAMI holds 10 courses and the $9.99 annual sub­scrip­tion gives you access to choose from over 12,000 courses.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Sys­tems, Izzo

If you have held off buy­ing a new golf GPS sys­tem because you thought they were too expen­sive — think again! The iGolf Neo Pock­et­size Golf GPS is now avail­able for $129!

The iGolf Neo Pock­et­size Golf GPS does not have graph­i­cal hole lay­outs, score­cards, or stats track­ing like some of the higher-end golf GPS sys­tems. It does offer the most impor­tant fea­ture that a golf GPS sys­tem can. The iGolf Neo dis­plays the dis­tances to the front, cen­ter and back of every green. It will also show the yardage dis­tances for up to four cus­tom points per hole. These cus­tom points can be edited by you and used to dis­play yardages needed to carry haz­ards or layup yardages. The iGolf Neo will also dis­play the dis­tance of your last shot. Know­ing how far you hit each club in your bag is instru­men­tal in improv­ing your golf game.

The iGolf Neo Pock­et­size Golf GPS will hold up to ten courses. Down­load from over 32,000 courses at iGolf.com by pur­chas­ing a yearly sub­scrip­tion of $34.95. The iGolf Neo gives you the abil­ity to map your own courses. Map courses your­self and skip the subscription!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Sys­tems, iGolf Neo

The OnPar Touch­screen is a full fea­tured golf GPS sys­tem. Setup is easy to under­stand using the quick start guide and the touch­screen makes for an enjoy­able user experience.

The OnPar gives you the dis­tance to the front, cen­ter and back of every green like any of the other golf GPS sys­tems. It also dis­plays a graph­i­cal over­head view of the hole lay­out which is instru­men­tal in help­ing you visu­al­ize and plan your shots. From this view you can touch any spot on the hole and get both the yardage to that spot and the yardage to the pin from that spot. The OnPar fea­tures a score­card that allows you to record your score, num­ber of putts and whether you hit the fair­way and green in reg­u­la­tion for each hole. The shot track­ing fea­ture enables you to track each shot and the club you used. The OnPar then cal­cu­lates your min­i­mum, max­i­mum and aver­age dis­tances that you have hit each club. You can sync the infor­ma­tion from your OnPar to your PC for future analysis.

Watch the video to see the OnPar Touch­screen in action!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Sys­tems, OnPar

Every golf GPS system’s main fea­ture is the abil­ity to tell you the dis­tances to the front, cen­ter and back of every green. It is also the fea­ture that will most ben­e­fit your golf game.

The yardage mark­ers on the golf course tell you the dis­tance to the cen­ter of the green. With­out a yardage book, you have no idea what the size of the green is so you can­not deter­mine the dis­tances to the front and back of the green. This causes you to con­cen­trate on and use the yardage to the cen­ter of the green. A bet­ter approach is to ini­tially look at the yardage range from the front to the back of the green.

Golf GPS sys­tems give you a yardage range to con­cen­trate on instead of a sin­gle yardage. You will want to nar­row down this ini­tial range. The process of nar­row­ing down this range makes you think about pin place­ment and which way the green slopes. My ball might be sit­ting right at the 150 yard marker which is a per­fect seven iron for me. By look­ing at my golf GPS sys­tem, I see I have 135 yards to the front of the green and 165 yards to the back. I need to nar­row this yardage range down, so I look at the pin and notice it is on the front half of the green. I would esti­mate it to be 140 to 145 yards away. I also look at the slope of the green and see it slopes down from the back to the front. Armed with this infor­ma­tion, I now see that I’d be much bet­ter off hit­ting my eight iron. My eight iron yardage is 140 yards. I will leave myself a nice uphill putt if I hit it a lit­tle short of the hole. If I hit my seven iron, I’d likely land it past the hole and leave myself a tricky down­hill putt.

A golf GPS sys­tem will help you look at the dis­tance left to the green as a yardage range. This gives you an advan­tage com­pared to using the sin­gle yardage to the cen­ter of the green that the golf course yardage mark­ers give you.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Golf GPS Systems