Why I chose GolfBuddy Pro

When I decided to buy a golf GPS unit, I did a lot of research on this site and many others. For me, the following factors were the most important:

1. Price - This includes not only the cost of the unit, but also any annual subscription fees.

2. Number of Mapped Courses - I was especially interested to see if the courses I was most likely to play within the following year were available and how quickly the company could get courses mapped. For comparison purposes, I looked up a sampling of 13 courses, ranging from municipal to resort courses, but no private clubs.

3. Number of Courses Stored on Unit - Because I take a golf trip to Myrtle Beach every year and play in other cities, 10 courses seemed to be too few, because of all the hassles involved in loading and unloading courses.

4. Who Owns the Downloaded Courses? - Could I keep using the courses if I stopped subscribing?

5. Automatic Hole Recognition - I did not want to have to press buttons to show the next hole. I also felt automatic course recognition would be a big plus.

6. Speed and Accuracy



I paid no attention to the ease of self-mapping courses. If I'm paying hundreds of dollars, my feeling is that the courses should be mapped by someone else. But I did want the ability to add and edit points, if needed.



In addition to this site, I found the following sites to be extremely helpful in evaluating my options:

http://www.digicaddie.wlb1.com/comparative..._on_budget.html

http://www.digicaddie.wlb1.com/gps_comparative_table.html

http://www.intheholegolf.com/compare-golf-gps-systems.shtml

http://ezinearticles.com/?Choosing-a-Golf-GPS&id=1424338



I quickly eliminated Skycaddie, Garmin Golf Logix, and Sure Shot, because you're left with almost nothing if you don't continue subscribing. I eliminated uPro because of its high price. That left me with iGolf, Golf Guru, Sonocaddie, and GolfBuddy.



iGolf has the most comprehensive course library. Only 2 of the 13 courses I looked up weren't available. For $35, you can download as many courses as you can in one year and they're yours to keep. The Neo is attractively priced, but it can hold only 10 courses. The Caddie II holds 40 courses, but does not offer automatic course or hole recognition.



From all the reviews I read, Golf Guru would have been my number one pick, except for the fact that their course library is limited. Seven of the 13 courses I looked up weren't available. They promise to map one course of your choosing within one week, with the rest to follow at some point. 20 pre-mapped courses can be saved on the unit and if you want to replace them with new courses, you must download them from the web site each time.



Sonocaddie did not have 6 of the 13 courses I looked up. The XV2 does not have automatic hole recognition and the V300 is expensive.



So I settled on the GolfBuddy Pro, because of it huge 20,000 course capacity (about 16,000 courses are preloaded), automatic course and hole recognition, no subscription, and reasonable price tag ($304 at Amazon). It did not have 5 of the 13 courses I looked up. I read about some people reporting inaccurate or fluctuating distances, but I have not noticed those problems in the two times I've used it. The distances are within 5 yds of the sprinkler heads, which is good enough for me. When I'm walking, the numbers don't fluctuate. When I'm riding, it takes about 5 seconds for the distances to stabilize.



When I first turn it on, it takes about 2 minutes to get enough satellites to start working and another 1-2 minutes to bring up the course and hole automatically. But it takes a long time if I have it in my pocket. So I recommend the included belt clip, but I find the clip rather bulky. It's one of those swivel clips and it makes the unit stick out an inch away from your belt.



The shot distance function is one of my favorites and is easy to use. You just hold down one of the side buttons for about 2 seconds. As you move, the distance changes in real-time. The front and back of fairway bunkers and water tend to be marked as targets, but some doglegs may not be, in which case you would have to add a target yourself. The intelligent green function presents the shape of the green from where you're standing and the measurements to the front and back of the green are changed accordingly. I haven't paid much attention to this function yet to comment on it. To see the unit in action, there's a nice video of it on YouTube: .



The rechargeable battery is rated for 14 hours. I think it lasts a little longer than that. In either case, it lasts well over two full rounds in a day. If the battery dies on you, you can use AAA alkalines instead. The black & white display is easy to read in bright sunlight and in low-light conditions.



Downloading new courses is not hard. First, go to www.golfbuddyusa.com/en/main/ to download the Course Manager software. You can download all the new and modified courses in any state or country with three clicks. One drawback is that you can't download all the new and modified courses in the U.S. all at once. You have to go to each individual state, which is a pain. To see the entire list of courses and when they were updated, go to www.golfbuddyglobal.com and click on Course Library.



When I bought the unit, I requested the addition of 5 courses. 2 were added in within 3 weeks and 1 was added within 4 weeks. I'm still waiting on the other two, which admittedly are rather minor courses. To date, they have 16,192 courses worldwide and 12,049 courses in the U.S., including 1172 in FL, 321 in AZ, 1008 in CA, 378 in SC, 463 in NC, and 471 in PA. Within the past 4-5 weeks, they have added 13 new courses in FL, 2 in AZ, 4 in CA, 53 in SC, 165 in NC, and 141 in PA.



All in all, I've been pleased with my purchase. I especially love having it when I'm far from the middle of the fairway, especially if I can't see the pin. As I get better, I'm sure I'll be using the distances to the front and back of the green more. I hope this review has been helpful to you.

One quick correction-my iGolf unit (GPS Caddie II) does have automatic course recognition-it will highlight the course closest to its present location-that is if it has been turned on long enough (about a minute) to have locked on satellites and figured out where it is relative to its course library. It does not do hole recognition, as you note, but I never really have found that to be a problem

Thanks very much for the correction. I'm going to keep a careful watch on the accuracy of my GolfBuddy, since that seems to be the biggest potential negative from the messages I've read here. I wonder if some of the mappers at the company are better at doing the mapping from aerial/satellite photos than others. I also notice a big difference in the resolution of those maps on Google Earth and Google Maps. For example, check out the differencce between Prestwick Country Club, Myrtle Beach, SC and Rivers Edge Golf Club, Shallotte, NC (both of which are excellent and fun courses to play).

Here's an update to my original post. I played Buffalo Golf Course in Sarver, PA, today. I decided to see what the unit read at the 150 yd marker (column A). I also recorded what the unit read at my approach shot (column B) and compared it to the distance to the center of the green using the shot distance function (column C). On a few holes, I forgot to record one of the numbers, which is why there's a blank there. If it's uphill from the 150 yd marker, I labeled it as U. Downhill is D.

hole--A----B---C

-01--145--205-211

-02--147U-139-132

-03--153--181-184

-04--131D

-05--par3-159-170

-06-------185-184

-07--par3-143-140

-08--153---67--67

-09--151--113-112

-10--155---91--92

-11--151U-130-131

-12--147--152-144

-13--145---66--65

-14--par3-171-170

-15--151D--78--75

-16-------101-101

-17--par3-141-143

-18--148--206-207

I don't know why the 4th hole was so far off on the 150 yd test. It's about a 1 1/2 club drop from the 150 yd marker to the green, which I suspect accounts for part of the difference. It seems to me that anytime there's an uphill or downhill shot, GPS units will underestimate the laser distance to the green, since the laser distance would be the hypoteneuse, while the GPS distance would be the level distance to a point directly above or below the center of the green. But then, this doesn't explain why holes 11 and 15 were right on.

 

While doing this experiment, I noticed that it really helped to wait about 5 seconds for the numbers to stabilize, even though I was walking. Before the 7th hole, I wrote down whatever number I saw when I glanced at the unit. After that, I watched the number fluctuate and waited for it to settle on one number. You can see the numbers were quite dependable after the 7th hole, except for the 12th hole, where there was an 8 yd discrepancy on the approach shot. All in all, I felt that my GolfBuddy Pro was accurate enough for my purposes as a 23 handicapper. Hope this info helps.

My friend has one and although I really like the upro, I was a little jealous. We have played 5 courses and it has all the hazards and a 150 and 100 yardage on all holes as well. I really liked it. When he connected it, it did a firmware upgrade and it had 10 new courses to add and 7 revisions to previous courses. Not much difference in yardage and no worries about running out of battery when we decided to play an extra nine. Good choice.

Great review but I cannot understand why you bought it from Amazon for $304.00 when you could have bought it off the Digicaddie site you mentioned for less.

Am I missing something here?

Just saw that it was the Golf Buddy Pro you were talking about and not the Plus - hence the price difference. Please ignore my silly question. :drinks:

Here is some advice I will give you. Do Tour caddies use Satellite images to map out a courses. I think not, they would be fired. That's why they walk the course and get the best accuracy just like Skycaddie.You get what you paid for. Golf Buddy is in it for the short term and you will see what I mean....... Do you pay a membership for you cell phone? Think about it.......

My thoughts on skycaddie on the down side of them walking your course. We waited for 3 years to get skycaddie to map it . The caddie borrowed a cart and came off the course in less an a hour . He only mapped tee boxes and greens and a few bunkers. we have over 50 bunkers and 14 water hazzards.

Needless to say skycaddies undermarked our course and is next to useless. So Skycaddie is only as good as the guy marking the course, so do you get what

you pay for ...In this case a NO!!!

gb