The Golf Buddy GPS distance finder

The Golf Buddy
There are several GPS units that give you accurate golf course distances on the market now. I have used two of them; Sky caddie and Golf Buddy. They both give you very similar information, but there are some major differences that are important. I have been trying the Golf Buddy for a couple weeks now-- on several courses and I like it much better than Sky Caddie.

First of all, the purchase costs are quite similar. However the Golf Buddy requires no annual subscription fee and no need to continually download courses from your computer. They are all stored right there in the device (or up in cyberspace, somewhere). I started at Firerock in Fountain Hills AZ and turned it on. It took a few minutes to boot up, then it recognized Firerock and asked me: Are you at
Firerock CC. I hit the toggle switch yes and in a minute it loaded up the first hole. After that it automatically forwarded to each successive hole and gave me distances to front, middle and back of green, in an easy to read font (I like it when it’s easy to read)

You can also toggle and get distances to water and bunkers and hazards, but for my eyes, which now need reading glasses, it was difficult to read, I could do it with a bit of squinting but it would be such an improvement if they could increase that type size.

You can also pick your favorite layup distance (say it’s a 100 yard Pitching wedge) and it will tell you the distance to that anytime you want it.

It has a rechargeable battery and seems to hold the charge for at least 1 if not 2 rounds.

The website has a complete list of courses that are on Golf Buddy and I found a couple that are not on it, The Champions course at TPC Scottsdale and Vista Verde. You can email golf buddy and they say they will add them, which I did a week ago and I am still waiting to hear what happened to my request. As of this writing I have not heard back from them, so I don’t know how well that system is set up yet.

It has features that allow you to hit “Mark” and determine how far you hit any shot that you hit. It also has a feature where you can mark an unknown course you are on and up load it to their system. Don’t let any of this bother you because they seem to have so many courses on their system that its hard to imagine there are many that you won’t find.
For example in Arizona alone, they have approx 300 listed on the web. It also has a feature where you can keep your score, but I have not tried this yet.

It also comes with an instructional DVD from Rick Smith, who endorses the product, but is also one of the top golf instructors in the U.S.

For price and convenience, I would take this over any other global positioning device I have played so far. For more info visit www.golfbuddyglobal.com