GPS Golf Guru - Any thoughts on this?

[Gozz]

Woo Hoo! Version 1.12 is available to all.

 

 

...Too bad I just got back from the course ;)

 

I'm glad that the new release is finally out but that is a lot to go through in order to modify a course. It is not really practical if you have groups waiting on you. I wish they would of used one of the soft keys that would say "edit" or "modify" then hit the mark key and be done with it. I guess I should hold my judgment till I give it a try and see how fast it will work.

[imezru]

How long have you guys been waiting for a course to be mapped once you request it? I requested a course back on March 20th and it still has not been mapped. Curious if this is normal or not.

[jwknow]

How long have you guys been waiting for a course to be mapped once you request it? I requested a course back on March 20th and it still has not been mapped. Curious if this is normal or not.

 

NO....thats not normal. I'd send them and email. I suspect your request somehow got lost. I requested 3 or 4 courses as soon as I received my Guru about a month ago. They were all mapped within about 10 days. I requested 3 more courses a couple weeks ago. They've mapped 2 of them since then. They've got the best fastest customer support I've ever dealt with. A simple email would probably get you an answer within hours or even minutes, which has been my experience.

 

JW

[phil75070]

I understand they were initially "outsourcing" their course mapping and have since brought it in house for quality control purposes. Maybe your request got lost in the changeover. Did you use the form on the site or request the mapping via email? I think using the site is the best way for new course requests.

[MajorPain]

Hey all,

I upgraded to v1.12 and downloaded the *new* user manual as well.

My question is.... what the heck is that little pie shaped icon that is now on the screen when I fire up the Guru?

 

It is right next to the signal strength meter. Any ideas?

Looks kinda like a peace sign....

 

or... maybe mine has an "undocumented feature" :D

[Mark_va]

I've got the same symbol on mine after the update (and also have no idea what it is).

[NeverSatisfied]

That is the symbol for whether the distance is displayed in Yards or Meters.

[imezru]

How long have you guys been waiting for a course to be mapped once you request it? I requested a course back on March 20th and it still has not been mapped. Curious if this is normal or not.

 

NO....thats not normal. I'd send them and email. I suspect your request somehow got lost. I requested 3 or 4 courses as soon as I received my Guru about a month ago. They were all mapped within about 10 days. I requested 3 more courses a couple weeks ago. They've mapped 2 of them since then. They've got the best fastest customer support I've ever dealt with. A simple email would probably get you an answer within hours or even minutes, which has been my experience.

 

JW

 

Thanks, that's what I thought. I emailed them on May 5th asking if they knew when the course would be available for download. I got a response saying it has been assigned so it should be mapped fairly quickly. I emailed them again yesterday and they responded that it's still showing assigned, but they will check with the mapping manager for why it is taking so long.

[puckcoach3]

I received my Guru about a week ago and had the pleasure of using it for 3 rounds at 3 different courses. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or something else -- thought some of you veteren Guru users may know.

 

I usually power on the unit a few minutes before I tee off. What I noticed is that when I'm playing the first couple holes, the only information that I get is Front/Center/Back for the green. No traps, etc show up. All of a sudden, around the 3rd hole, I begin to get all the rest of the stuff (traps, hazards, etc). I thought that maybe the mapper just didn't do it for the first couple holes but today, I played in a shotgun and tee'd off on #12. Same thing, first couple holes, just green info then for the rest of the holes, I got everything. Weird ...

 

To add -- I keep the Guru in my pants pocket, no case (naked). Any insight ???

[Gozz]

I received my Guru about a week ago and had the pleasure of using it for 3 rounds at 3 different courses. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or something else -- thought some of you veteren Guru users may know.

 

I usually power on the unit a few minutes before I tee off. What I noticed is that when I'm playing the first couple holes, the only information that I get is Front/Center/Back for the green. No traps, etc show up. All of a sudden, around the 3rd hole, I begin to get all the rest of the stuff (traps, hazards, etc). I thought that maybe the mapper just didn't do it for the first couple holes but today, I played in a shotgun and tee'd off on #12. Same thing, first couple holes, just green info then for the rest of the holes, I got everything. Weird ...

 

To add -- I keep the Guru in my pants pocket, no case (naked). Any insight ???

 

You need to power on sooner. You probably don't have enough satellite coverage when you tee off. Before you tee off look it the bottom left corner and see how many bars you have. You need a min. of 2 but 3 would be better. I would imagine by the 3rd hole your unit has locked on to enough satellites that it can provide the information that was mapped. When you get to the course power it on or even while you are on the way to the course. I always throw mine in the golf cart while I am practice putting (the cart is right next to the green so that I can see it) and by the time I need to tee off I have 3 bars. I have timed my unit several times and it has always hit 3 bars in under 5 min. so it might have something to do with where you live and the satellite coverage.

[h2ohzrd]

Here's the latest info I received from Amanda at Golf Guru. The question involved the software upgrade charge.... ;) It now turns out that we are offering software “updates” for free, and software “upgrades” we will charge for after 1 year or after 3 years with the extended warranty. Software updates are when we feel a feature needed to be added to the current release of software. I hope this clears the air and settles some confusion.

 

 

 

As of right now, if you map a course, it is not available to all, but our developers are actually working on making it available now to where our customers can share maps. We do not have a date of completion on this task, but it is in the works.

 

 

 

When requesting a course map, you get an automated email with a support case number that says it will take 7 business days. However, it may take fewer days or more days depending on several things. These things are how quickly our mapping team can obtain the scorecard and layout from the facility and if there is clear satellite imagery or not. Map requests might get completed sooner for our customers if they happen to have a scorecard at home that they can fax/email to us. That saves the mapping team time on research.

 

 

 

You can save the self mapped courses to your personal page that we provide for our customers on our website. When logged in with a username and password, customers have access to a page called “My Mapped Courses” which is where all the self edited and self mapped courses can be uploaded to by simply plugging your Guru into the computer and clicking Upload Courses on the Guru Utility.

 

[Gozz]

 

You can save the self mapped courses to your personal page that we provide for our customers on our website. When logged in with a username and password, customers have access to a page called “My Mapped Courses” which is where all the self edited and self mapped courses can be uploaded to by simply plugging your Guru into the computer and clicking Upload Courses on the Guru Utility.

 

 

What she fails to mention, as of this date, is yes you can upload them but if something happens to your unit and you loose your self mapped course you can not download your map back onto your guru.

[jwknow]

Here's the latest info I received from Amanda at Golf Guru. The question involved the software upgrade charge.... ;) It now turns out that we are offering software "updates" for free, and software "upgrades" we will charge for after 1 year or after 3 years with the extended warranty. Software updates are when we feel a feature needed to be added to the current release of software. I hope this clears the air and settles some confusion.

 

Soooo.....I guess I'm looking for a BETTER definition of the difference between an "UPGRADE" and an "UPDATE" ?? The description from the above post that Amanda sent you, seems a little vague to me. Are "UPDATES" free for life and "UPGRADES" will have a charge after 1 year? What exactly is the difference between the two? Am I overlooking something obvious here? Come on Amanda.....enlighten me/us in here. :D

 

JW

[Mark_va]

Here's some more details in the answer I got when asking the same thing:

 

snip

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We currently offer free software upgrades to all Guru owners. We have

released at least 5 new versions of software since releasing the Golf Guru

that have all enhanced the overall functionality of the device. As far as we

know, we are the only handheld golf gps company to do this, especially this

many times.

 

Although bug fixes will always be free, there may be software versions down

the road that offer functionality that we may decide to charge for. Examples

might be a version of software that offers a betting module, or a version

that offers an advanced statistics package, or perhaps a mapping module that

has nothing to do with golf.

 

We don't anticipate charging for minor upgrades or tweaks in the future.

With the recent release of course map editing, we have reached most of our

major milestones for features we thought necessary to make the Guru

attractive in this highly competitive market. Major additions in the future,

might be offered at some cost. Of course, this business is very dynamic, and

the thought process could change at the drop of a hat. Whatever we decide,

we will have the interests of our customers in mind, and not do anything

rash that would alienate the community.

 

Regards,

Golf Guru Support

[Mark_va]

Here's some info on where the uploaded stats go on your pc.

Also if you look at the XML file there are additional categories for stats that

are not yet supported. So perhaps a new release will allow populating them.

 

Also software vers 1.14 is now out. I didn't get an email notification but saw

this when uploaded a newly mapped course.

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi! Those are good questions! Your answers are below.

 

1. When the round ends, you can upload them at home to your computer and

USHandicap.com. Please follow the steps at the bottom of this email to

learn how to do that.

 

2. It will erase your scorecard upon turning it off. The Guru will give

you a message stating this when turning it off. You can select the option

to go ahead and power the Guru down, or cancel turning it off to keep your

scores in there until you get home to upload your round.

 

3. It does not remember multiple rounds, but you can save your rounds on

your PC and/or USHandicap.com.

 

4. The rounds went to your PC stored in an .xml file. Instructions on

viewing this is at the bottom of this email. You can join USHandicap.com if

you wish. Your scores will be easier to read than on your PC. The file on

your PC is not the typical way of viewing scores, so it is a little

confusing to read. It looks a little like coding script, but is definitely

readable. You can copy and paste the info from the .xml file to an excel

spreadsheet if you wish to make it easier to view.

 

5. Days indicates what day you downloaded a course last. If you push the

joystick to the right when the arrows are on Days, it will give you other

dates that you have downloaded courses to your Guru.

 

Below are instructions on how to view on your PC. This was not meant to be

the main way of viewing (USHandicap.com is), so it will look a little like

coding script. But, it is readable to see your scores.

a. Play your round and properly save scores on the Guru.

b. Plug the Guru into the computer using the USB cord.

c. Open up your Guru Utility.

d. Click "Upload Rounds".

e. Go to "My Computer" on your Start Menu.

f. Click on "C drive" (or where you stored your Guru Utility)

g. Click on "Program Files".

h. Click on "Golf Guru".

i. Your uploaded round will be in the Golf Guru folder in a dated file

of the date that you uploaded that round. When you view it, it will look

like coding script, so you'll have to scroll down through the page to view

each score. The file you need to open will look something like this:

1_303675DD_200804251348 (1 underscore GURU ID # underscore date of upload).

 

 

To use USHandicap.com, you must have version 1.11 or higher on your Guru and

utility version 1.5.0.2 or later on your computer for this to work properly.

 

. Please upgrade your Guru Utility to 1.5.0.2 and make sure you are using

software version 1.11 on your Guru. In order to do this, please follow the

steps below.

[BillK9989]

I currently have the original iGolf Caddie, which I like a lot. I am considering buying a Golf Guru.

 

One nuisance with my Caddie that I would like to think is not a problem with the Guru is adding a new custom point during a round of play. With the Caddie, you have to back all the way out of "Play" mode, go into "Map" mode, map the point, then back out of Map mode and go back into Play mode. This takes quite a bit of time and is disruptive to the flow of the golf game.

 

Can you tell me how the Guru handles the situation of mapping a custom point during a round of play?

[Gozz]

I currently have the original iGolf Caddie, which I like a lot. I am considering buying a Golf Guru.

 

One nuisance with my Caddie that I would like to think is not a problem with the Guru is adding a new custom point during a round of play. With the Caddie, you have to back all the way out of "Play" mode, go into "Map" mode, map the point, then back out of Map mode and go back into Play mode. This takes quite a bit of time and is disruptive to the flow of the golf game.

 

Can you tell me how the Guru handles the situation of mapping a custom point during a round of play?

 

It is pretty close to the same thing as the Caddie. I don't think that any company has come up with a way to modify a course while in "play" mode.

[jwknow]

09

It is pretty close to the same thing as the Caddie. I don't think that any company has come up with a way to modify a course while in "play" mode.

 

 

Being able to "mark" points while in play mode would be a nice upgrade. Just hit a button.....mark the point....go back to playin your round. Wish it were that easy.

 

JW

[BillK9989]

I currently have the original iGolf Caddie, which I like a lot. I am considering buying a Golf Guru.

 

One nuisance with my Caddie that I would like to think is not a problem with the Guru is adding a new custom point during a round of play. With the Caddie, you have to back all the way out of "Play" mode, go into "Map" mode, map the point, then back out of Map mode and go back into Play mode. This takes quite a bit of time and is disruptive to the flow of the golf game.

 

Can you tell me how the Guru handles the situation of mapping a custom point during a round of play?

 

It is pretty close to the same thing as the Caddie. I don't think that any company has come up with a way to modify a course while in "play" mode.

 

 

The iGolf Caddie II allows this.

[larson92]

Both the igolf caddie II and the igolf Neo have a much improved method to edit courses/points while playing.

 

You can look at their Users Guide to get the details of how this is done.

 

Of course, the igolf comes with its own idiosyncrasies--such as only being able to use six characters to label a point...having a lousy website...or having to pay $35 per year to access new courses.

 

But if you already own one, then you already know about all of the igolf's interesting issues--and the upgrade for editing courses looks to be very good and easy to use. I'm seriously considering either the Neo or the Guru. I'm just still waiting on some of the software issues on the Guru to be resolved.

 

Also, if you are still playing around with one of the old igolf caddies, a new feature in most of the new GPS units (incl. caddie II, Neo, and Guru) is the shot distance feature, which lets you measure the distance for any of your shots (or from any point A to point B--but you have to take the unit to point A and then to point B to measure)

[cdtate]

Customer Service is Great! I was having a problem buying a Guru on Ebay since they were being sold for more than the cost of the unit minus the charger. I wrote customer service on Saturday at 5:30 pm and received an answer a few hours later. Great response especially over the weekend. I am buying a Guru from them with a wall charger and will write about its performance.

[phil75070]

Probably not germane to the conversation, but I just did an experiment in my front yard. Side-by-side, the Golf Guru practically immediately gave me a distance to the course I selected, while the SkyGolf SG2 took over 10 minutes to synch up with the satellites and give me a distance. A check of the Golf Guru showed it bouncing back and forth between 10 to 12 satellites used and using WAAS, while the SG2 showed three strong signals, a moderate strength on a 4th satellite and a very weak 5th satellite. I don't know if the SG2 is WAAS enabled as it doesn't mention anything in the unit itself. Which one do you think might be more accurate?

[rogue]

I'm about ready to punch the buy button on a Guru (Happy Birthday to me!). Can someone answer these questions for me if they can?

 

What does the score/stats look like once they have been put on your PC?

 

Can you map a course using Goggle Earth and upload that to the Guru. Will that work?

 

Thanks

[GoToTheJoe]

The score/stats on the PC doesn't look very good. It's like looking at HTML code where each stat is part of a tag with a value. Definitely looks better on the Guru itself. I haven't signed up for the USHandicap but from what I read, the stats should look great over there.

 

You can use Google Earth to find targets for mapping and pre-program them into a self mapped course but you actually need to be at the course and use the MARK button so actually map the position of the target or green. The mappers at Golf Guru use Google to map the courses but I don't see how the users can do it this way.

[NeverSatisfied]

Keep in mind that to record your scores/statistics on the US Handicap site or on your PC, you cannot turn off the Guru until you get home and upload the data. Otherwise, the scores, statistics etc. are lost and all that is there is the course name and date of the round.

 

There is a warning message displayed on the Guru about loss of data before you press okay to turn the Guru off.

[rcncgolf]

Not sure I follow not turning off unit. When I uploaded rounds - went to my PC I can see numerous rounds & all the associated scores/stats....I just uploaded from 4/15ish to 5/22 (looks like each time I turn it on - seems to record a round whether I play or not & also records 9 or 18 holes....) I can also see Greens, Fairways (noted by 1 in the line), scores & # putts:

 

Example of code below:

 

<hole5>

<par>4</par>

<yards></yards>

<handicap></handicap>

<numstrokes>4</numstrokes>

<driveinfairway>1</driveinfairway>

<drivedistance></drivedistance>

<fairwaymiss></fairwaymiss>

<greeninregulation>1</greeninregulation>

<girmissshortlong></girmissshortlong>

<girmissleftright></girmissleftright>

<numchips></numchips>

<numbunkers></numbunkers>

<lenfirstputt></lenfirstputt>

<numputts>2</numputts>

<numpenalty></numpenalty>

<poorconcentration></poorconcentration>

Can Anyone else verify they can see numerous rounds..... even though unit is turned off after round.

Looks like a time stamp is included for each day/time powered up, so if I play 2 rounds, looks like just need to power off & start over (have not tried this!)

 

I like the extra game improvement capture info - bring it on!!!!!

[tdsgolf]

Does anyone know what features were changed with the 1.14 upgrade? Just got the Guru today and upgraded to 1.14 but can not find any info on what changed.

[phil75070]

1) The inability to modify and delete features in a user mapped course. (modify and delete are not available for editing of features already found in Golf Guru supplied courses).

 

2) Green orientation issue.

[rogue]

This is my first gps unit and I was reading the user guide for mapping your own course and it does not say anything about setting a mark on the tee. I'm assuming that the yardage is being determined based on the unit position relative to the first target on the hole and that marking the tee is not required. Am I correct?

[phil75070]

This is my first gps unit and I was reading the user guide for mapping your own course and it does not say anything about setting a mark on the tee. I'm assuming that the yardage is being determined based on the unit position relative to the first target on the hole and that marking the tee is not required. Am I correct?

 

You are correct. You never have to worry about where you (the unit) are needing to be marked, you are only concerned with the unit showing the distance "to" and/or to "clear" other marked points.