GPS

bamayang

Hi, do many people use GPS units? I have been looking at the SHOT SCOPE V2. It is a watch which gives you distances to front and back of the green. But then it also has these plugs which go into the handle of each club. So then after a round you can log into your account and see the distance you hit each shot/club with during the round.
I feel yardage is something that lets me down a little at time and wondering would this provide a good benefit. I am not that keen on having a watch on while playing, but would be interested to hear other peoples opinions.

Are they a gimmicky fad or is there benefit in them?

Thanks

Beaulieu

There's a thread on Shotscope -search the golf forums. Bottom line -its excellent tee to green but I find putting a bit off at times. Takes about 5 mins post round to edit your round. Recommended

newindublin

Shotscope didn't register half my shots for some reason so I returned mine and went with a Garmin S20. But I do see a lot of people with them, so your milage may vary.

blue note

I've the garmin s20 and it can record your shots when you use it with the phone app. It's slightly interesting to see, but it's not terribly useful. If you include all your shots it will not give a true estimate on how far you hit each club.

On the one hand, you'll have some shots that you hit before the ball, where you hit a tree etc. These will be included in the calculations but won't be of any use in telling you how far you hit a club. Similarly, you'll have a few shots that go much further than you can hit - shoes running through the green and down a massive run off area. After 3 rounds I was averaging 188m with my 5 Ron from 3 shots. This was not accurate. And if you think they'll magically average out to your distance with each club you're mistaken.

I'm not saying don't know your distances, I'm saying measure them from "normal" hits. Think about the weather, slope, etc and decide whether or not it's an accurate gauge of how far you hit it.

GreeBo

blue note wrote: »

After 3 rounds I was averaging 188m with my 5 Ron from 3 shots. This was not accurate. And if you think they'll magically average out to your distance with each club you're mistaken.

tbf you didnt really give it a chance!
Over 30+ rounds it will start to be representative of your distances, 3 data points are useless.

blue note

GreeBo wrote: »

tbf you didnt really give it a chance!
Over 30+ rounds it will start to be representative of your distances, 3 data points are useless.

But most of the shots will have factors affecting distance. Wind will take more off your shots than it will put on. An exceptional hit might add on 10 yards to an iron, but a duff could take a hundred off it. Not clearing trees will take huge distance off. A slice is common to amateurs and will lose you heaps of distance. But if that's your bad shot you need to know what you distance is if you hit it straight and if you slice it. If not you'll be long every time you hit it where you aim.

I'd think differently if most shots were a fair reflection on your distances. But most shots aren't. I'd be working out what your standard distances on days with no wind for each club. Adjust for wind and slope from there and keep an eye on the effect they actually have. But if you just put in data from 30 rounds and go by those distances I'd hazard a guess that you'll tend to be rolling off the back of a lot of greens unnecessarily.

Mantis Toboggan

Haven't used shot scope but a gps device is crucial. Very handy to know your distance to green, bunkers water etc. Essential these days.

If you want to know how far you hit each club just get on a top tracer or trackman for an hour and record the data.

slave1

blue note wrote: »

I've the garmin s20 and it can record your shots when you use it with the phone app. It's slightly interesting to see, but it's not terribly useful. If you include all your shots it will not give a true estimate on how far you hit each club.

On the one hand, you'll have some shots that you hit before the ball, where you hit a tree etc. These will be included in the calculations but won't be of any use in telling you how far you hit a club. Similarly, you'll have a few shots that go much further than you can hit - shoes running through the green and down a massive run off area. After 3 rounds I was averaging 188m with my 5 Ron from 3 shots. This was not accurate. And if you think they'll magically average out to your distance with each club you're mistaken.

I'm not saying don't know your distances, I'm saying measure them from "normal" hits. Think about the weather, slope, etc and decide whether or not it's an accurate gauge of how far you hit it.

Golfshot GameGolf address some of your points e.g. if I take a 7iron from beside the green it will exclude it from average 7iron distances. It also records the wind speed and direction on the round which you can - manually - factor into your shots.
Data points need to be high for meaningful results, I'm pretty confident on my distances now and can quickly make up my mind on pretty much all shots so it will help speed of play in time.

spacecoyote

slave1 wrote: »

Golfshot address some of your points e.g. if I take a 7iron from beside the green it will exclude it from average 7iron distances. It also records the wind speed and direction on the round which you can - manually - factor into your shots.
Data points need to be high for meaningful results, I'm pretty confident on my distances now and can quickly make up my mind on pretty much all shots so it will help speed of play in time.

GameGolf does the same too, excludes what it deems to not be a full shot from the stats (though doesn't factor for wind).

These things are not supposed to give you an exact precise distance. GameGolf gives you a typical distance per club (which you can refine for where you are hitting from (Tee, Fairway, etc...) as well as overlaying with a distribution to show to upper & lower range of your typical shots. EG with my SW, I've hit hundreds of shots on GameGolf, the largest portion of which would be short-game shots. But it gives me a typical of 69 yards, with an upper bound of 79 & a lower bound of 58 yards for the shots it deems as full shots. Yes that's a 20yrd range, but I know myself the hows & whys of that range. My longest measured shot with it is 114yards, but that isn't included in the typical area. I basically use it as a club in the 60-80 yards range, so the stats are pretty accurate in their reflection of that, once you get enough data points in there.

Gone off topic there, but to the OP, 100% get yourself a GPS. Its entirely up to you whether you decide to go for one with some shot-tracking software built in, you'll get out of it as much as you put in to it.

slave1

Brainfart, meant to say GameGolf, don't know where Golfshot came from:o