which iphone GPS app, apple watch optional

[Dewdman42]

 

Which one, and please include why you like it.

 

Apple watch use is not possible for me but I might add it later.

 

Subscription is not out of the question, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

 

I don't think I care too much about shot tracking or shots gained, etc.  I tried Arccos already, and returned it because I don't like the sensors or the sub price.  I don't think I really need shot tracking unless it's both easy, reliable and cheap/free.  Much more interested in which app is going to be the best for giving me the distance, slope, wind, etc..  Let me pick the club I don't want a caddie for club choice.

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Dewdman42

[fjk]

I like Tag a lot. 3D render is good, has overhead satellite view, and the AR live view has come in handy several times with blind shots through/over trees or mounds/hills.

 

Shot tracking is nice too, if you use it, to replay the hole later for stats etc.

[NCDuffer]

I used golf pad for several years before going to a V3 for what has been seamless shot tracking.  I do think the weather and elevation correction is very good on Golf Pad.  I don’t really trust the wind correction on any app as the wind is constantly changing.  Golf Pad will show the correction for weather, wind, and elevation individually as well.

[BHA17]

I may be in the minority, but I’ve come to really like 18Birdies. Solid GPS capabilities, overhead satellite view is great, and score keeping with stat breakdown. My favorite feature is the ability to preview a course…always fun to map out the shots I’ll inevitably mess up before I go play a round 😂

[KensingtonPark]

I have only used Golfshot and GolfLogix on this list. Both are excellent. I am using GolfLogix to try its green reading tools, which were very interesting to me, although challenging to use, to be honest. Since I last used it, Golfshot has added SwingID which is also very interesting to me.

[Springsteennut]

I’ve used the Grint the last few years. Easy to use and accurate. Yardages usually match up pretty close to my brother in laws rangefinder. 

[mantan]

I've used The Grint since 2017.  Pretty much everything you want is in the free version.  18 Birdies is really good too. We use that for league. I think their GPS features are better.  If I started all over, I'd probably use it.  But it's sort of like running apps.  Once you have so much data in one, you don't feel like starting all over with something else.

Edited August 22, 2023 by mantan

[klharper]

18Birdies for me.  There’s a lot I don’t like about the layout and UI (and obnoxious popups in free mode).  Despite that, the GPS feature is the simplest to use and I’ve found the more accurate than others when I compare to my rangefinder (when applicable).

[LBB]

I'm using V1 Game.  The Apple Watch integration for auto shot detection and showing you how far you are from your last shot is the main feature I ike about it.  

[golfortennis]

On 8/18/2023 at 10:02 AM, KensingtonPark said:

I have only used Golfshot and GolfLogix on this list. Both are excellent. I am using GolfLogix to try its green reading tools, which were very interesting to me, although challenging to use, to be honest. Since I last used it, Golfshot has added SwingID which is also very interesting to me.

 

I've found the same.  Their short videos on how to use it miss the mark IMO.  They need something a little more in depth.

[Golfcrzy]

18birdies for mapping. Once you get into an actual map, the features are excellent and easy to use. 

 

GolfLogix for Greens (does 3d renders if you want). I’ve used it long enough to know the interface but frankly I may glance at it for approach shots more than the putt reading tool. 

 

Tag for Watch or cartoony 3d rendering.

[Minarets]

18Birdies for me as well. Love it. Really like the new update for the Apple Watch as well.
 

Are used to use Hole 19 but they have gone to a subscription service to keep scores on the watch. So I’m now out on that.

 

I wanted to use the Grint but it used to kill my battery life on the phone as well as my watch. Saw where my Golf spy just gave it the best. App and try it again and it also is a subscription service to do everything I want to do. I like the fact you can keep your handicap, but I already pay for GHIN.  
 

18Birdies does everything I need. Easy to use I can keep scores on my watch as well as stats and works well on phone and watch. 

[Papadibs]

Golfshot Pro is my favorite that I've used.  I do use an Apple watch for the auto shot tracking, but even without it is a great GPS tool that gives auto distances to bunkers/OB along with front/back/middle of greens.  The yearly subscription allows you to point anywhere on the map for distances.  Coming from a Garmin watch this is the best alternative I've found.

[bastifantasti]

Any advice which of these apps offers a slope-function, that calculates up-/downhill adjustments and tells me the real distance to the green?

[NCDuffer]

GolfPad offers a slope-function, that calculates up-/downhill adjustments and the real distance to the green.

[Dewdman42]

So reboot this thread after a year since I originally posted the question.  I have since decided I want to track strokes-gained, and possibly club stats too.  I tried arcos but ended up returning them as I didn't like the feel of the sensors on my grips.  

 

I have been using v1game (now called Roundabout) and I ended up paying for a year at the Eagle subscription which has some virtual caddie and virtual coach features which I am just beginning to explore to see what I might get out of it.  Here are some of the things I think I like and dislike about Roundabout so far..some of which could be pilot error or not..  I am curious about other apps still, however..   I am wondering about SwingU and Tangent the most, but also GolfShot, and any other apps which actually track strokes gained while providing GPS shot planning.

 

I have realized my primary reasons for an app+applewatch are as follows:

1. classic GPS app usage, plan shots. (note I also use a range finder occasionally)
2. Strokes gained tracking
3. Possibly could benefit from club tracking

Roundabout Comments

 

Auto Tracking

 

I think Roundabout's auto tracking is quite good and is making it reasonably painless to track strokes gained without having to use any separate sensors anywhere.  I use the apple watch, it detects when I swing.  I simply have to quickly use the watch to tell it which club I used.  It's not quite as convenient as arcos or the other sensor based approach, but no sensors is a good thing.  At the end of the hole I enter the score and number of putts, and it basically figures out automatically if it needs to add a shot somewhere in there which you have to fix at the end of the round, but it shows you all this breadcrumb info and makes pretty good guesses at where you probably took a shot too. I find this to be quite good alternative to carrying sensors on the clubs.   Putt tracking could be better.

 

Putting Info

 

I find this information a bit lacking.  In addition to not really having any stracka green reading stuff like some other apps, it is not convenient to track specific putting actions since they claim the apple watch and phone can not detect putter swings automatically nor get the exact distances accurately enough even if it did.  Therefore, you pretty much have to enter total putts and distance of first putt, and then it just assumes your second putt was 2 feet (which is often not correct for me) and never mind about 3 putt tracking.  So arguably the most important strokes gained stat that I need to track is really not tracked very well with Roundabout IMHO.  Maybe there is a mode of operation I haven't figured out yet to make this better.  I might start going in and manually editing my putting strokes after each hole, to put the exact distance of each putt in there, which would then give me the strokes gained stats I need, but thats definitely not convenient.

 

It does have a mode to enter in whether putts are missing long, short left or right...and I haven't been using it because takes too long to enter it in manually, but I am curious how that might affect some of the visualizations over time that it gives to show my tendencies.

 

Classic GPS shot planning

 

I find this to be pretty good, not great.  It gives me quickly on my watch the front, center, back of the green.  On the iphone I can plan a shot to a spot on the fairway to see how much shot I need to make to have a desirable approach shot after that.  It does not give great info about hazard distances.  I have to use rangefinder for that sometimes.  It also does not seem to provide elevation, but maybe I'm missing something.  it does provide current wind.  It does not provide any green reading help.  I do love that I can see how far I hit my drive as I walk/ride up to the ball.  I do love that I can see all the other times I played the course before and where my drive landed on all those previous attempts.  Nice!  I have not been using virtual caddie yet, but I may start to try to work that into my GPS shot planning routine to see how it goes.  I think it's probably not quite as nice for GPS shot planning as compared to some other apps such as Golfshot and 18birdies and others..but perhaps good enough?  I would love it more if elevation and stracka green info provided and perhaps more hazard distances.  

 

Strokes gained tracking

 

I think it's pretty good, but I don't know what to compare to.  It tracks all my shots, provides numerous graphs I am still learning how to understand.  I can go back and look at any hole I played on any round and review each shot to see how I lost or gained strokes.  I love that I can see where each shot landed, how far I hit it, and a record of the wind at that time when I played it too.  I like that it factors in the fact that some shots are recovery shots and should lose strokes and marks them as red on the hole review.  Penalty shots plainly shown.  This is all very helpful.  the putting tracking could be better, maybe I need to learn how to use it better.   It has correctly identified some specific areas for me to work on, identifying approx 5 strokes of "errors" which if I focus on could improve my scoring, we'll see how that goes.

 

Club Tracking

 

The jury is still out regarding club stat tracking.  It's not clear to me it's factoring wind or slope at all into telling me what my actual club distances have been.  its probably also including my clearly mishit shots in the average distance, which is not useful or helpful and if anything very misleading.  I think these apps need to reverse engineer a baseline distance for each club which takes into account elevation change, wind...in order to track a kind of baseline actual average distance of each club...which then when planning future shots can be used to accurately estimate which club should be used.  It is not at all clear to me what it is doing and the distances it is giving me as averages do not even closely match what I have measured with a launch monitor.  Plus there will always be some shots that involved hitting out of the rough or sketchy situations...where I lose tens of yards...and should not be factored into the average baseline stat either for future club selection purposes.  Its always possible to not track those shots manually, but its tedious to figure out which ones to not track and manually not track it, and really I'd still like to track which club was used, but need a way to indicate it should not be factored into average distance stat, or something like that.  Driver distance is interesting, not as important as irons for tracking, but I have a few shots every round registering 270-300 yards for various reasons, but somehow my driving distance is averaged out to like 230 yards.  That is obviously including some complete mishit balls that went OB or into some junk or other none sense...well...that is completely un-useful stat to me then.  The truth is I typically hit my reasonably struck drives 250+ yards...and need to plan all drives with the driver accordingly....not according to an irrelevant 230 average which is including mishits, etc.  The same logic goes into iron distance calculations...the only purpose of knowing those distances is for planning future shots..and if they are including mishits and adverse lie situations into the average, it becomes a useless statistic.

 

Proximity Tracking

 

This i think is pretty good, it shows me for various approach distances a visual representation of how close I'm getting to the target (I guess it's assuming the pin is the target?).   I would appreciate to see a similar visualization for each club, but I'm not sure that is there.  I would also love to see it track my driver spread based on a planned target rather then how far off the middle of the fairway since we are often dealing with dog legs. 

 

Breadcrumbs

 

I love the breadcrumbs.  I think they may be unique in this, not sure, but it really helps me to remember each hole and manually edit it after the fact to make sure every shot is registered in the right location.

 

Responsive Developer

 

I have interacted with the developer through support lines and already he fixed a couple things that came up while I was using it, I found him to be very responsive, the app is currently still being actively advanced and developed.

 

AppleWatch

 

I found the apple watch app to be sufficient, not great.  It shows front, middle back and that's about it.  The focus is on the auto tracking without sensors.  I had to pull my phone out for more extensive shot planning, see a map, etc..  This could be pilot error, not sure.  In some ways I like this mode of using the watch mainly for tracking my shots easily and accurately and then using the phone for the mapping and planning.  Makes sense.  Most holes I don't have to pull the phone out honestly.   I think it could improve in the area of making it easier for me to register chips and putts properly without having to use the phone to do it, from the watch somehow.  Right now auto detection doesn't handle those well, and you really have to use the phone to manually enter them or edit after the hole or round is over.  I might be missing some features I don't know about though.

 

Summary

 

I think I like this app quite a lot as an alternative to the sensor based solutions such as arccos and ShotScope.  I don't like the sensors.  I think as a GPS shot planning app it's probably not as nice as some other apps out there which themselves often do not track strokes gained at all, nor club tracking and/or in some cases are way too laborious to effectually handle strokes gained tracking..they are not automatic enough without sensors or the system Roundabout uses to auto track.  But may have superior GPS shot planning features in comparison.  

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2024 by Dewdman42

[Carolina Golfer 2]

On 9/30/2023 at 11:59 AM, Minarets said:

18Birdies for me as well. Love it. Really like the new update for the Apple Watch as well.
 

Are used to use Hole 19 but they have gone to a subscription service to keep scores on the watch. So I’m now out on that.

 

I wanted to use the Grint but it used to kill my battery life on the phone as well as my watch. Saw where my Golf spy just gave it the best. App and try it again and it also is a subscription service to do everything I want to do. I like the fact you can keep your handicap, but I already pay for GHIN.  
 

18Birdies does everything I need. Easy to use I can keep scores on my watch as well as stats and works well on phone and watch. 

The GHIN app has one of the best and simplest GPS functions and you have the options of buying shot/stats as well.  You can look back ans see your season long stroke average on each hole if you habe a course you play regularly.