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Yardage can sometimes be a difficult thing to measure by eye. This is especially true if you’re on a course you’ve never played before, you have poor vision or there is a lot more elevation than you thought. Not only this, but there could be some hidden bunkers that you’re not aware of.
If you’re a fairly competitive individual and playing at the club of a friend or a business assosciate, you want to win. A watch which measures yardage will not remove home course advantage, but it certainly will negate it to some extent. You will no longer be caught out by things you couldn’t see, or simply misjudge that the pin was actually 30 yards further than you thought it was.
Therefore, if you’re regularly playing golf on different courses or you’re simply a poor judge of distance. If used correctly, a golf GPS watch can take several strokes off your round. In general, the higher the par, the more this watch is going to help you. It may be easy to just drive a par 3 straight to the pin, but if you’re on an unfamiliar course, a yardage watch will really show its value for money on the par 4 & 5 holes. Golf watches really go to town on dogleg holes, rangefinders simply cannot compete against them on non-straight distances.
You could opt for a laser rangefinder, although these have many limitations compared to a watch specifically designed for golf yardage. In short, they are somewhat innaccurate if you don’t have something specific to aim at and can easily be blocked by obstacles such as trees. Not only this, but they’re often equally or more expensive then a golf yardage watch. Lastly, you don’t have to waste your time taking it out of your bag and pointing it like a gun before every hole. On a watch, distance can be visualised and computed much faster.
Table of Contents
What To Look For In A Golf Yardage GPS Watch
Battery Life
This should go without saying. You want something that can last at least 18 hole. Whilst pretty much every golf yardage watch on the market offers this. It is obviously better to have something that lasts significantly longer. This way, if you ever forget to charge your watch after you’ve finished playing, it will be ready to go again for another round or two.
Variety & Number Of Courses
Most brand name yardage watches will come preloaded with a variety of courses. These are usually in the tens of thousands, so you shouldn’t have to worry about your course(s) being included.
However, if your course isn’t included, you can always upload it to the watch so it’s not a big deal anyway. But in general, the more courses the watch can store, the simpler it is for you.
Ease Of Use
Like many things in life. Sometimes the best things are the most simple things. Ideally you want a watch which auto updates based on your position and understands when you’re at the tee.
You don’t want to have to sift through complex screens of options and adjustments after you’ve initially set the watch up. Fortunately, most golf GPS yardage watches are designed with this in mind.
Brand
If you’re regularly golfing then you’re probably going to use your watch quite a lot. Therefore it makes sense to go with a good brand.
It’s likely if you play golf then you have more discretionary income than the average person, but that doesn’t mean you should just buy the most expensive yardage watch. It also means that you should certainly avoid the cheapest and go with a well known brand.
Cheap brands have a bad reputation for simply breaking or significantly slowing down after a few months of use. If you go with a high end or middle of the road brand such as Garmin. You won’t have to worry about this since they have been producing GPS products for a variety of things in life other than golf and are an industry leader.
Best Watches For Golf Yardage
Garmin Approach S40
Available in either black or silver, the Garmin Approach S40 is both one of the best selling and the industry standard for golf yardage watches.
To start with, it’s visually not an eyesore and looks like a normal smartwatch. I’m not recommending that you wear this to a restaurant, but it’s certainly not ugly. The 1.2″ display is ideal for golfing, it’s very bright and has an anti-glare feature that means even if you’re lucky enough to play in the beaming sunshine, that won’t be a problem.
As far as functionality goes, the watch comes with 41000 preloaded courses which are both US and international. Battery life is pretty good and you can generally get 2 rounds of golf in per charge. The watch is also pretty accurate in understanding how far your drives go and recording them. Although it should be mentioned it will not pick up putts – since this distance is too small for the GPS to compute.
Check The Price Of Garmin Approach S40 Watches On Amazon
Garmin S10 – Budget Pick
With a GPS mode battery life of 12 hours, the S10 is the best budget golf yardage watch. Secondly, it’s reasonably stylish as it looks remarkably similar to an Apple smartwatch. It comes with all of the necessary features such as preloaded courses, scorecard tracking and a sunlight visible display.
Unlike the Garmin S40, the S10 does not have a full color screen and is less fancy. With that being said, it’s around half the price of its alternative model, so is great value for money. It also has a slightly bigger touchscreen so will be useful for those who don’t have fantastic eyesight or don’t use modern technology that much.
Not that you plan on getting it wet, if you do happen to have an accident and drop this in the water. Don’t worry as it’s waterproof.
Check The Price Of Garmin S10 Watches On Amazon
SkyCaddie LX5
SkyCaddie make some of the most advanced golf yardage watches on the market. With the LX5, it’s not just a golf yardage watch as you’ll also be able to zoom in and check the shape of the green. This is made easier by it’s 1.39″ face which is one of the biggest screens available. It has 35000 golf courses preloaded which isn’t the most compared to Garmin, but not too little either.
You’ll obviously pay a bit more for these features since SkyCaddie is one of the more expensive brands. Although if you’re happy to pay the extra money, you do get slightly more features than other watches. It offers a lot of things other watches do not such as a heart rate monitor and step counter. To be honest these things really aren’t necessary for golf, but if you’d like to track them it’s probably worth spending more.
Check The Price Of SkyCaddie LX5 Watches On Amazon
Samsung Galaxy Active 2 (Golf Edition)
As Samsung make smartwatches fot fitness, the Active 2 is exactly this, but has been fitted with some golf upgrades to suit your needs.
If you are sekking a golf watch for women, daughters or anyone else. The Samsung Active 2 is a good idea compared to other watches since it comes in a variety of colours. Most golf watches come in black, this one can be acquired in pink gold.
Overall if you’re looking for a golf GPS watch and a smartwatch for fitness, this is probably going to be your best bet. There are better golf yardage watches and there are also better fitness watches. However, if you’re wanting both, this is a real bargain as it bundles all of the features together.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Shot Scope V2 is that it has a much bigger screen than other golf yardage watches. This is bad if you wanted to wear it as a fashion watch, but for a watch meant to be worn playing golf, it doesn’t really look out of place. In all honesty, it’s not as cosmetically pleasing as other golf watches, but is very reliable and a lot cheaper.
It has a good shot tracking GPS and generally provides you a ton of data that you can analyze, but likely will never bother looking at. However, if you want to dig in deeper, you can find out which clubs are useful and which ones you don’t bother using. If you can be bothered, it will certainly help sharpen up your game by revealing your flaws.
Check The Price Of Shot Scope V2 Watches On Amazon
Bushnell Neo Ion 2
Mostly known for their binoculars, Bushnell actually make a very high quality yardage watch. It’s quite a bit smaller and basic looking compared to its rivals. Although a lot of the visual work that is done on most watches is instead done through an app on your phone. Only the basic and important information is displayed on the watch face.
Much like other golf yardage watches it offers well over 30000 courses and also has a 12 hour battery life. The GPS is also solid as you would expect. One last feature to mention is that the watch bands are reversible. If you’re fed up with plain black, the color on the inside can be put on the outside or vice-versa.
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Garmin Approach X40
The Garmin Approach X40 is visually different to almost all other golf yardage watches. It is more slimline and truly a fitness based golf watch, rather than anything made to look nice and visually appealing.
Available in either black or grey, the budget golf watch does not offer as many features as some of the other watches. Although with that said, it is appropriately priced.
If you require both a smartwatch for fitness and for golf this is a real bargain. It has features such as a heart rate monitor and an activity tracker. This is one of the only smartwatches that doesn’t have to be worn purely for golf and can be used for other physical activities.
Check The Price Of Garmin Approach X40 Watches On Amazon
Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition
Tag Heuer is a brand known for entry level luxury watches. In recent years they have dipped their toe into the water of manufacturing smartwatches.
The Tag Heuer Modular range (smartwatches) are mostly well received although obviously you’re going to pay a premium for the brand name. In fairness to Tag Heuer, they do make their watches from quality materials and their IOS is very solid too.
That said, unless you’re looking for a luxury golf watch, this is probably not worth the money. If you’re a big fan of the Tag Heuer brand, then perhaps it is worth spending 8x the price of a standard golf yardage watch. But if you’re just comparing features, there is far better value for money elsewhere in the market.
Check The Price Of Tag Heuer Golf Watches On Amazon
Golf Buddy Aim W10
The golf buddy W10 has mixed reviews and is generally considered to be a budget version of the Garmin S40 Approach. Visually they look very similar and have a lot of the same features.
All golf buddy W10 come with at least one spare band. This is just for personal preference, so if you don’t like the band that is currently on your watch, you can swap it out for one of a different color.
It has all the neccessary features such as yardage GPS, 10 hour battery life and over 40000 courses. Unlike it’s competitors, the Golf Buddy W10 also boasts to have 51% of US course green undulations. This will give you the edge over competition that don’t have this feature available to them.
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