Garmin Approach S1 Golf GPS Watch

Irishvillian

Hi has anyone on hear got one or used one,any info would be great,cheers.

nanook

Any takers on this. I am interested to known if its worth it.

NDJ4

nanook wrote: »

Any takers on this. I am interested to known if its worth it.

I got one last Christmas, find it absolutely brilliant. It has really helped to determine how far I hit each club. Distance markers are fine when you are sitting in the middle of the fairway and can tell exactly how far you are to the front but more often than not I find myself 30 yards into the rough and my S1 gives me exact distances to front, middle and back. I'm definitely hitting a lot more greens with this. I also used to fall into the trap of looking at the 150 marker and hitting a club for this distance and not taking into account that the flag may be another 20 on, again you are left in no doubt with this exactly how far you have left no matter where you are on the course. Another great thing about it is that it only takes a second to look at as you approach your ball so no fiddling around with rangefinders etc. and your playing partners don't even need to know you have it on.

Only downsides with this are poor battery life (8 hours in GPS mode but I wouldn't trust it to go two full 18 holes on a single charge), and also a terrible connector for charging and connecting to PC which is way too fiddly. Can't understand why they didn't use a mini-usb connection for this. I have also had to update it once since buying which I managed ok but it wasn't the most straight forward process. Only other problem with these now is that due to their popularity the golf shops have jacked up the price. I bought mine on Amazon.co.uk as it was on special around Christmas so got it for €150. I was in halpenny recently and overheard the manager saying he couldn't keep them on the shelf and his supplier saying they were increasing the price of them due to popularity. They have them on "Sale" now for €199 but they definitely were cheaper there a few months back.

Overall though I still think its a brilliant piece of kit and the odd time I go up for practice now and forget to bring it I'm lost without it!

Waesfjord

nanook wrote: »

Any takers on this. I am interested to known if its worth it.

agree with last poster. just takes the element of doubt over your shot length, only takes a sec to check, free updates on courses.

It could be U

And there's a really handy odometer on it as well if you like to do a bit of running

Waesfjord

It could be U wrote: »

And there's a really handy odometer on it as well if you like to do a bit of running

true, use that often aswell, find that it sometime stakes a while to zero the odometer as seems to be first trying to 'find' you on a golf course first

WillyWonka

The S3 is just out and should be in the shops shortly (checked in McGuirks today but they didn't know about it).

It's touchscreen and seems a bit easier to use and more stylish...but it's about €350!!

TANGLEWOOD

USA Versions are very cheap on Ebay. Do you know if you can update with European maps as I suppose you need Irish courses on the watch to get the distances of each hole?

Blazer

Got it a few months ago and love it...highly recommended and it's nice to just have to glance down at your hand and see the distances
White rocks though..matches my gloves

fearruanua

a friend of mine got one of these recently. he loves it but the only problem and its a bit of a big problem is that his club bearna gc in galway is not on it. anyone know why does may be. i checked the website and every club around bearna is listed except bearna??

Mr. Larson

I just put in a bid for one of these yokes on Ebay. Might inspire me to get out running again, while helping me dial in my yardages

GreeBo

brian1976 wrote: »

agree with last poster. just takes the element of doubt over your shot length, only takes a sec to check, free updates on courses.

Is this not true of any GPS device though?
How does it compare to using a "full size" GPS or a Laser?

Mr. Larson

Well you only get distances to front middle back of green and you can measure your shots via an odometer but it won't give you what the others do which is information such as distance to a hazard, corner of dogleg etc. It's quite basic really but looks ideal for me personally as it's approach shots into the green where I need some assistance.

opinionated3

Just to let you know that these watches are on americangolf.co.uk for 139 pounds sterling. Seems to be the cheapest around as far as I can find.