Wearing a
golf GPS watch on your wrist as you play is as good as having your own personal
caddie—or at least it’s pretty close.
A GPS
watch takes out most of the guesswork, giving you precise yardage that lets you
play your shot with confidence. Those who already use one will already
appreciate just how much they can improve your course management, helping you
to avoid trouble and put together a good score.
However, today’s best golf GPS watches don’t just help you save shots. Many of these watches are packed with additional features, such as shot and performance tracking. In other words, they help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to shape your practice accordingly.
We’ve
selected nine of the best golf GPS watches currently on the market. Some are a
bit pricier than others, which generally means they have more features and/or
additional technology. For some golfers, though, a simple front, middle and
back yardage to the green is all that’s required—others want all the trimmings,
such as health and fitness data, and a lot more detail.
Whatever model you go for, you can be confident that this device will do your golf game the world of good.
The best golf GPS watches
Garmin Approach S62, RRP £479.99
This premium device, which features a 1.3” colour touchscreen display (ceramic bezel), sits towards the top end of the price range, but for good reason—it’s feature packed. One of the most useful features is Virtual Caddie, which takes into account wind conditions and past swings to help you select the best club for each shot.
The S62 also
offers full-colour course mapping with the Pinpointer directional feature,
helping golfers to play smarter. Meanwhile, the PlaysLike distance feature
accounts for uphill and downhill shots, so you can always be confident that you
are given pinpoint yardage.
There are numerous other features, some of which you may decide you don’t need. It offers 24/7 wrist-based heart rate monitoring and a Pulse Ox sensor, which estimates blood oxygen saturation. You can use it for contactless payments, too, and when paired with the Garmin Golf app, you can compete against your friends with weekly leaderboards, create tournaments, and upload scorecards.
GolfBuddy Aim W11, RRP £249.99
The Aim
W11 has its fair share of useful features but can be described as more ‘wallet
friendly’. At the same time, the ceramic bezel creates a premium look, which
makes it a popular model. Features include a full-colour touchscreen display,
plus green undulation and slope-adjusted distance readings (where available) to
give the golfer better, real-life views and more control of their game around
the course. There’s also a zoom-in/out function that helps get a better view of
the green.
Other positives include the lengthy battery life (up to 13 hours in Golf Mode), automatic course and hole recognition, and it comes preloaded with over 40,000 courses worldwide with free wireless course updates via Bluetooth with the smartphone app.
Voice Caddie A2, RRP £239
You get a lot of bang for your buck with this stylish, modern sports watch. It gives yardages to the front, centre, and back, and allows the user to manually select the pin position—plus, you can obtain yardages to hazards and bunkers. It’s also simple to navigate using a combination of the colour screen and four corner buttons. In fitness mode, the Voice Caddie A2 counts steps, distance walked, and calories burned.
Bushnell iON Edge, RRP £169
If you’re
looking for simple functionality along with accurate distances, the iON Edge
from Bushnell may be the golf GPS watch for you. There are perhaps more stylish-looking
designs on the market, but it still ticks many boxes.
The watch displays easy-to-read front, centre, and back of the green distance measurements, with up to six hazards per hole. It also offers Dynamic Green View mapping, with a moveable touchscreen pin giving golfers extra precision. The device automatically locates which golf course you are playing and advances to the next hole. With scorekeeping, basic stats, and a built-in shot distance calculator, the iON Edge has most of the important features covered.
Shot Scope V3, RRP £179.99
The compact V3 from Shot Scope is a stylish and lightweight GPS watch available in four colours—black, grey, red, and teal. Features include green undulation, colour touchscreen, customisable pin placement, and slope. In GPS and Performance Tracking mode, the easy-to-use V3 will automatically detect shot locations using tags placed on the tops of your grips. If you’re into your stats and want to see where you need to improve, this could well be the watch for you.
SkyCaddie LX5, RRP £299
One of the most appealing aspects of this watch, apart from its many features, is the 3.5cm touchscreen. The larger-than-average size screen provides clear aerial views of the hole ahead with a moveable pointer telling you the distance to your chosen spot. Arc lines help improve strategy, while you can zoom in on the green and move the pin position for a more precise distance. Over 35,000 courses, which have been ground-verified on foot, come preloaded. Despite the large screen, this watch is wonderfully lightweight (65g) and exceptionally comfortable to wear.
Voice Caddie T9, RRP £369
The T9 from Voice Caddie comes equipped with shot and putt tracking, which keeps track of your score throughout the round. The full-colour touchscreen provides yardages to the front, centre, and back of the green, and offers advanced features such as Active Green (improves accuracy), V-Algorithm 3.0 (slope calculation), Green Undulation (indicated with heat map and arrows show the break direction), Putt View (shows elevation and distance to the pin), Smart Green (touch pin-placement), and Course Views (yardages to hazards and bunkers).
TecTecTec ULT-G, RRP £129.99
If you’re
on a fairly tight budget and don’t see yourself using many of the features that
you’ll typically find on some of the more expensive GPS devices, then you may
want to check this device out.
It’s a very user-friendly model with simplicity at its core. Golfers should find that it’s easy to pair with a phone and the app, although you don’t have to use the app to use the ULT-G on the golf course. The device, which provides distances to hazards as well as the front, middle and back of the green, offers 38,000 preloaded courses with no subscription or update fees.
Garmin Approach S42, RRP £269.99
The S42
may not boast the same number of features as Garmin’s S62, but it’s still quite
an offering, and there’s still a lot of impressive technology at play,
including AutoShot round analyser that tracks and records shot distances, as
well as yardages to bunkers, hazards and ideal lay-up zones.
In addition, once you’ve paired the watch with the Garmin app, you open a whole database of strokes gained stats, which will provide you with hours of fun after a round and highlight areas of your game where you need to improve. Also included in the S42’s repertoire is the ability to show you steps taken, distance covered, calories burned and even how well you’ve slept.
Specialist golf insurance with Golf Care
Golf GPS watches are pretty neat pieces of kit, but they can also be rather expensive. You may also want to consider purchasing specialist golf insurance as an added layer of protection and security.
With Golf Care, policies include Equipment cover up to £7,500, Public Liability up to £10m and much more. Cover is also underpinned by the ‘Ripe Guarantee’, which guarantees great cover and service to match at an affordable price.
Click on the banner below to learn more about specialist golf insurance with Golf Care.
