slow play and in cart gps

[g-off]

A club near me just recently got new carts with in cart gps and scoring......played with my regular group the first week and took us 4.5 hrs. We are all a fairly quick group and average round is normally 3-3.5 hrs. I never realized how much of a difference just writing down a score on a piece of paper versus going through screens for the name of simplicity makes. Played with them again and gps was down, 3.5 hrs. The better part is everyone shot normal scores, with or without gps, bear in mind we play this course enough that I can pretty much navigate the course with no real yardage assistance. Sometimes it makes me wonder if the technology can also hinder play, ie rangefinders on damn near every shot, or maybe someones standing on my lawn?

[scomac2002]

In my experience rangefinders do not speed up play. GPS is questionable because the cart must go to every player's ball. It's all about keeping people on the clock as a means of trying to control pace of play. I avoid courses that require the use of such devices as they slow play down and the marshaling staff ceases to use common sense in favour of what the screen tells them.

[tsecor]

technology is great but not always faster....remember turning on a radio and getting to your favorite station in 5 seconds? Now you have to open up an app, and then choose a station or a genre....

Range finders slow the game down a lot in my opinion.....cart GPS is good if you are riding and it eliminates the 3 minute view and discussion about distances.

[P.E.]

I think properly used cart GPS is at worst time consumption neutral.

 

[Lodestone]

Rangefinders don't have to slow the game down. If player A is 10 yards ahead of player B, and has to wait for Player B to hit before proceeding to his ball, there is no reason he can't shoot his distance, and step of difference. Not many of us need the yardage to the exact step...within a few yards is well within most of our performance tolerances.

What slows play down is Player A not thinking a head to his shot until he gets to the ball, shoots his own distance and then starts thinking about what club to hit. He could have that 95% figured out by the time he gets to his ball.

 

The deal with carts, has me mystified. Do you have to keep your score on the screen rather than on a card? I've only played once with the fancy cart with the GPS...we had a few issues with it, but I don't remember having to keep our score on the computer. A couple of times I got my distance, hit my shot long, went back to check the distance and it had changed. I assumed the first distance given was with incomplete satellite information, and after I'd walked to my ball, the GPS got more information and changed the readout. Irritated me substantially.

[SNIPERBBB]

Might be your group. Unless you have a problem with decisiveness I can't see why having gps makes you slow unless you have old-timers disease, not to be confused with alheizers.

[HatsForBats]

To be fair it was your first time using the system so no doubt you were inefficient and probably checking out all the 'neat' features. Like any other software/hardware I would think there are good versions and bad versions. I don't see why courses are even considering adding GPS to carts these days. Maybe they are being sold on how much they can save on Scorecard printing and pencil costs?

[buckeyefl]

I think the scoring feature is probably the problem. GPS and rangefinders should not slow things down at all. Quite the opposite actually.

[Springsteennut]

I play at a place with gps in the cart. I don’t think it slows play for me. It’s just a quick glance up at the screen and I get right out. I don’t use the scoring feature but I could see if you’re not familiar with it it could slow you up a bit.

[North Butte]

If they have some sort of brain-dead app for "scoring" built in to the cart GPS units then I can't image what the course owners are thinking. It's like they WANT to add half an hour to every round of golf.

 

Who thought that what golf needed was for guys with perfectly good smartphones in their pockets to sit in a golf cart arguing over how to enter scores on an overhead touch screen designed by the guy whose other job is designing microwave oven clocks menus.

[Golfer4Life]

> @buckeyefl said:

> I think the scoring feature is probably the problem. GPS and rangefinders should not slow things down at all. Quite the opposite actually.

 

This^^^^^^^^. I have never used the scoring feature, it is a drag!

 

[g-off]

I agree with the scoring information, I still use a pencil and scorecard, but two of the other guys I play with started finding apps and using them and it just seems to add time here and there, I use a bushnell gps and its within 2 yards of any other gps and works for me, no one I play is better than +- 8 yards at best. I go with the pick a club and swing it method, I believe the "gadgets" can get in the way.