Arccos Vs Golf Shot

[Walkerdb7]

Mind was blown today to learn that you can get automatic club tracking without sensors…

 

Lost a couple sensors, got new clubs, and seems like a perfect opportunity to look at other options… 

 

Curious if anyone has tried both Arccos and Golf Shot GPS?

 

Does Golf Shot get the job done? Is it tons of manual manipulation to track clubs mid round?

 

[Walkerdb7]

🦗 🦗 🦗 

 

no has experience with both? Can someone tell me if the Golf Shot tracking works?

[airspeed23]

I have never used Arccos but I have heard good things and assume it does what it advertises (and would be an outrageous price if not!)

 

I've been using Golfshot's auto tracking feature with the Apple Watch over the last few rounds. Here's my take:

• It's really just an automatic on/off switch on the existing shot tracking that exists in Golfshot and Grint, and others if you are familiar with those.
• The club estimation doesn't seem very good. Of course it will assume driver off the tee, or it will guess what club you used based on the distance to the hole and the stated distance of your clubs. Doesn't have a good way to differentiate things like chip shots, punch shots, or anything other than full swing.
• You can alter which club is being used even during the tracking process, with the watch. This is critical otherwise I wouldn't bother with how inaccurate it is.
• Doesn't know how to differentiate practice swings, but it will only count as a shot if you start walking away from the starting position so this doesn't matter much.
• Sometimes it doesn't seem to pick up a swing so at the end of the round I'll check my tracked shots and see an approach shot missing, or it thinking I hit my driver 400 yards to when my 3rd shot landed. I just edit and add these in after.

Overall it's not as reliable as I'd like but it's better than pulling out the phone a lot and I can't afford Arccos so I'm fine with it. But if you are really counting on getting accurate data and every single shot I would look elsewhere.

[Walkerdb7]

Thanks! That sounds pretty similar to Arccos except, you don’t have to adjust the clubs in AppleWatch. It knows the club.

 

Arccos def misses some shots, needs to be edited, etc after the round. Across is powerful as hell, but it takes some patience and editing to get it going well. 

 

Across might understand the difference between a full GW and using it to pitch around the green, but I don’t believe it understands using a 7i as a punch out. It assumed it was a bad and you have to edit it “exclude from data” 

 

Do you enter your yardages into the app at the start or how does it guess what club you are hitting? 

[airspeed23]

You can enter fixed yardages for your clubs that it will use to estimate what you hit, or edit it's choices and let it automatically calculate club distances based on the hits it has recorded. I'm trying the latter option but have to be pretty careful with excluding shots that were mishits or that it mis-categorized.

You do have the ability to tell the system to ignore particular shots. I think this might tie into it's "smart caddie" feature to automatically recommend clubs, but I don't really use the app for that. I just want the gps numbers to various obstacles and then to see some of my tracked shots at the end of the round, and for that it works well enough.

[Walkerdb7]

9 hours ago, airspeed23 said:

You can enter fixed yardages for your clubs that it will use to estimate what you hit, or edit it's choices and let it automatically calculate club distances based on the hits it has recorded. I'm trying the latter option but have to be pretty careful with excluding shots that were mishits or that it mis-categorized.

You do have the ability to tell the system to ignore particular shots. I think this might tie into it's "smart caddie" feature to automatically recommend clubs, but I don't really use the app for that. I just want the gps numbers to various obstacles and then to see some of my tracked shots at the end of the round, and for that it works well enough.

Thanks

My arccos subscription runs out mid reason, maybe I will change then

Love the idea of no sensors. Arccos is not as plug and play as they might advertise, but I would expect there is always worse too

One other question, does Golfshit have anything this detailed?

Edited April 28, 2023 by Walkerdb7

[airspeed23]

Nope it doesn't do anything with club-by-club tracking except average length. Definitely not a replacement for arccos in that way.

 

You can do a free trial for 7 days I believe so that would be a good way to see what it's like.

[Pfish]

I only tried to use golf shot once yesterday but I will try again today.  I have used Arccos in the past but not the most recent version so comparison wouldn’t be fair.  Setting up Golf Shot by naming your clubs didn’t seem useful. For instance it asks what brand and model.  I have a Rogue Max 4 wood there is no choice for that.  I have a Taylor made M4 6 hybrid there is no choice for that.  I know there will be a learning curve but I couldn’t figure out how to change the score on my watch while playing.  I flipped, scrolled, clicked and gave up after a few holes.  The yardages seemed fine and were easy to read in the sun.

[Pfish]

Also not sure you can turn phone off while playing.

[Walkerdb7]

23 hours ago, Pfish said:

Also not sure you can turn phone off while playing.

I don’t with Arccos? 

[taskerc]

I’ve used Arccos and Shotscope and explored sensorless options. The one I liked best was V1Game. Same issue with needing to define and/change club selection at times, but I used it in parallel with Shotscope for one round and it was pretty accurate. The auto tracking was cool - it uses an event and location dwell time method - so it can create non relevant shot locations.  Those get ignored/ deleted once you signify the real locations. It was pretty easy to use. For me it wasn’t better than Shotscope (which is subscription free) but I thought it might be equal of better than Arccos given subscription requirement. Arccos is much better for presentation but V1Game also uses strokes gained and provides similar insights depending on subscription level.

[Walkerdb7]

18 hours ago, taskerc said:

I’ve used Arccos and Shotscope and explored sensorless options. The one I liked best was V1Game. Same issue with needing to define and/change club selection at times, but I used it in parallel with Shotscope for one round and it was pretty accurate. The auto tracking was cool - it uses an event and location dwell time method - so it can create non relevant shot locations.  Those get ignored/ deleted once you signify the real locations. It was pretty easy to use. For me it wasn’t better than Shotscope (which is subscription free) but I thought it might be equal of better than Arccos given subscription requirement. Arccos is much better for presentation but V1Game also uses strokes gained and provides similar insights depending on subscription level.

Great insights, thanks 

[x4me84]

With the subscription price increases, I am going away from Arccos too when my current subscription expires. I have used Arccos for a long time, but I know my club distances now and don't see the justification to pay even more for the same data. I mostly used it for gps distances, but will probably switch to Golfshot for that.

[Walkerdb7]

That’s where my head is at. I’ve had Arccos for 4 seasons? That data is 100% Impressive with knowing I miss with my 6i right of thing and my 8i comes up short usually? But it doesn’t fix anything? none of the “things to work on” are revolutionary. I lose strokes on lag putting. I knew that before I got Arccos? I also think Arccos just confirmed my club distances and I already knew that too. 

 

It’s super impressive and I love the concept of the shot tracking, but I am not sure what do with it… 

 

On 5/25/2023 at 3:24 PM, x4me84 said:

With the subscription price increases, I am going away from Arccos too when my current subscription expires. I have used Arccos for a long time, but I know my club distances now and don't see the justification to pay even more for the same data. I mostly used it for gps distances, but will probably switch to Golfshot for that.

 

[x4me84]

On 5/28/2023 at 9:59 AM, Walkerdb7 said:

That’s where my head is at. I’ve had Arccos for 4 seasons? That data is 100% Impressive with knowing I miss with my 6i right of thing and my 8i comes up short usually? But it doesn’t fix anything? none of the “things to work on” are revolutionary. I lose strokes on lag putting. I knew that before I got Arccos? I also think Arccos just confirmed my club distances and I already knew that too. 

 

It’s super impressive and I love the concept of the shot tracking, but I am not sure what do with it… 

 

 

Yes, exactly how I feel. The 3 things to work on tab has been the exact same 3 things round after round no matter which part of my game was good that day and I don't find it very helpful. With the price increase, the value just isn't there.

Edited June 5, 2023 by x4me84

[Dewdman42]

I just purchased Arccos and used a couple rounds, I'm going to return it while I still can.  it didn't tell me anything so far that I didn't already know.  I was spending way too much mental energy worrying about Arccos rather than my game.  Also I don't like the sensors, I am sensitive to things like extra weight, I can feel the difference honestly.   I can see already it will take literally dozens of rounds before the smart distances across my bag are correct.  I already know my distances also, I didn't really need arccos to tell me that.  So yea..its going back.  In the future if they figure out a way to make something with lighter sensors that don't need batteries perhaps, and a cheaper subscription, I might reconsider it, but I think its a lot of data that is fun to look at, but mostly not telling me anything I didn't know already.  Not worth the overhead.

 

I am still going to get an Apple watch pretty soon and I maybe I'll use one of the apps often mentioned like GolfShot, TheGrint, V1game, 18birdies...  have to try them and see which one would be most useful for basic GPS distances and perhaps some easy auto shot tracking.  I don't even care if it keeps track of which club I use, but it would be cool to know where I hit from, how far I hit, did it go left/right/short/long and by how much..and perhaps some info about short game.  With an Apple watch, all of that should be possible automatically without sensors...so I'll look for that perhaps.

 

Some things I do like about Arccos..I like the wind information and some information it was attempting to provide regarding humidity, temperature, wind, slope, altitude and so forth.  So if some of these other sensorless solutions provide that info I would be interested.  Giving me a real distance and and adjusted distance are very interesting, I can determine which club to use based on the lie and a variety of factors that Arccos caddie doesn't know.  And I routinely hit shots with 1/2 swings, 3/4 swings, punch shots, etc...again none of which arccos is paying attention to, and just confusing the caddie.  

 

I don't expect the other sensor products to be any better.  Too much hassle, not good enough.  But basic GPS and shot tracking, whatever can be done automatically with an apple watch...I'm in...

 

 

 

[Walkerdb7]

I couldn’t get Golf Shot to work. Skipped Arccos for about 10 rounds. Played poorly, haha, missed not seeing specifics 

 

I’ll be the first to admit, Arccos tells me nothing I didn’t know? I’m spraying my driver and putting lights out right now.

 

I reconnected Arccos, played a couple rounds, and it’s saying I’m -6 strokes on my driver Vs my ideal handicap and +3 putting. 

 

Not sure some people can rationalize $99 a year on this? But I like how it quantifies how bad is bad or how good is good? Gives me some point of focus. 
 

as an example, let’s say, I bladed a short side chip late in the round and it let to a double. Id walk off the course feeling poorly like my chipping was bad. I open up Arccos, and it reminds me that the worst part of my game was the driver, and it reminds the worst shot of the round wasn’t the reason I scored poorly.
 

it’s not telling me anything I didn’t know, but helps me refocus. Need to either work the driver kinks out or figure out new tee strategies to get back on track. That missed GIR or flubbed chip ain’t the issue 

 

in the grand scheme of spending a few thousand dollars a year on golf, what’s an extra $99? Haha 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Walkerdb7

[North Butte]

I think everyone, if they have the temperament to want to know such things, ought to at some point in their life track 20-30 rounds and calculate Strokes Gained (or something similar) to really understand what's influencing their scoring. It's always possible that you truly have some misconceptions about distances, how often you make certain mistakes, now many strokes you're losing or gaining by specific types of shots, etc. 

 

But I also think it's kind of like swing coaches who claim that certain elements of a total beginner's first swings are still part of his swing DNA years later. The stuff we can learn from analytics just doesn't really change that much in relative terms as our games evolve over time. 

 

I have Strokes Gained stats going way, way back about my own game. If I narrow in on any category or sub-category of scoring, they've all gotten better as my handicap has dropped from 22-ish to 12-ish over the past 10-15 years. It's not as thought I'm still driving it like a 22hcp but hitting irons shots like a scratch. Or any sort of "everything has improved except [fill in the blank]". I just drive it a little better, hit fewer awful iron shots, get my lag putts a little closer to the hole and have something a little closer to a functional short game than I did a decade ago. It all adds up to about 10 strokes lower scoring. 

[RSinSG]

Club tags don’t bother me, but if they are a deal killer you can ignore my recommendation. I went from GameGolf to Arccos once GG started their subscription requirement. Didn’t like Arccos and then discovered ShotScope. It took a few rounds to get used to wearing the watch, but it’s nice having GPS information without a phone. It’s easy to upload and edit rounds and there is good statistical information available if that is important to you. Also, the company has great customer support and if you lose a tag or your watch clasp breaks they typically send a replacement with no charge.

[phil75070]

6 hours ago, Walkerdb7 said:

 

in the grand scheme of spending a few thousand dollars a year on golf, what’s an extra $99? Haha 

I just looked up Arccos subscription cost. It is $155.88 / year ($12.99/month, billed annually.

[Walkerdb7]

6 minutes ago, phil75070 said:

I just looked up Arccos subscription cost. It is $155.88 / year ($12.99/month, billed annually.

That’s cementing my point? It was $99 at one point, I believe, and I didn’t notice the subtle price hike in my overall annual golf spend 

[Walkerdb7]

6 hours ago, North Butte said:

I think everyone, if they have the temperament to want to know such things, ought to at some point in their life track 20-30 rounds and calculate Strokes Gained (or something similar) to really understand what's influencing their scoring. It's always possible that you truly have some misconceptions about distances, how often you make certain mistakes, now many strokes you're losing or gaining by specific types of shots, etc. 

 

But I also think it's kind of like swing coaches who claim that certain elements of a total beginner's first swings are still part of his swing DNA years later. The stuff we can learn from analytics just doesn't really change that much in relative terms as our games evolve over time. 

 

I have Strokes Gained stats going way, way back about my own game. If I narrow in on any category or sub-category of scoring, they've all gotten better as my handicap has dropped from 22-ish to 12-ish over the past 10-15 years. It's not as thought I'm still driving it like a 22hcp but hitting irons shots like a scratch. Or any sort of "everything has improved except [fill in the blank]". I just drive it a little better, hit fewer awful iron shots, get my lag putts a little closer to the hole and have something a little closer to a functional short game than I did a decade ago. It all adds up to about 10 strokes lower scoring. 

The few times I’ve broken and sniffed 80, I’m hitting fairways all day and capitalizing on my length… that absolutely never changes 

 

but, it just comes down to what helps you see? Seeing the quantitative data vs thinking “my driving is killing me”. 
 

 

[Dewdman42]

At some point the hassles of trying to track the game for shots gained stats are kind of diminishing returns.  As others have said, am I really finding out anything useful?  or is it more about a love affair with tech that keeps us trying these things?  I already know where I am weakest.  I am always working on every aspects of my game, there is no aspect that I can ignore.  

 

what got me interested in shots Gained is that my local driving range has Top Tracer installed and they put in this Tracer30 game, where you make 30 shots and it gives you a shots gained score for every shot.  I have found it quite fun to see a scored result from each shot...rather than just looking at birdie,par,bogey as the success meter.  Shots Gained really tells me every single shot how much did I help or hurt myself.   Never mind that in real golf, you can scramble and make up for a mediocre shot often times.  I have enjoyed using that TopTracer app quite a lot, both to see immediately after every shot how good or bad it actually was....but also to give me something to score for, other then the simple golf score.

 

I would enjoy an app for my watch or phone that basically just did that, tracked my shot and then told me a shotsGained score for that specific shot in big bold letters.  Yes seeing the breakdown at the very end of different categories broken down can be interesting, but I find its usually telling me nothing I don't already know at that point. 

 

Arccos is trying to make it automatic.  I give them credit, but I don't like the weight of the sensors nor the price.  What I do like about Arccos is that they include wind, slope, altitude, temp, barometric pressure, etc...all that info provided for every shot with adjusted distances available.  That is useful info.  Do any other apps provide wind info?  And you don't have to think about the tracking, it's truly automatic, unless it misses a shot, so you still kind of have to double check as you go.  It's not totally mindless.  You still have to register the pin location and gimme putts.  But it's also quite expensive subscription.  I'm sending mine back, mainly because I don't like the weight of the sensors. 

 

I tried GolfShotPro as sensorless alternative yesterday.  I don't have watch and tried manually tracking shots.  It was a disaster.  May try it again to see if I can figure out how to properly use it, but I think in general, it's not worth the hassle of tracking everything and will probably cancel the trial subscription.   Free version may be ok, but probably doesn't provide shots gained stats, not sure.  I could not find a way to see a history of every shot and the exact distance it went, for example.  Also it required GPS to be ALWAYS ON to work properly, which drained my battery.

 

v1game I haven't tried yet, but its expensive like Arccos.    do I really need all those stats?  Probably not.

 

I think for basic GPS functionality, not tracking shots but just playing a round with GPS to help with distances...there are a number of free options that work fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[taoslcl]

I have had Arrcos for about 4 years. I try and ditch it every year because I get sick of hassling with the sensors, then miss it and come back to it. I am really trying to simplify my golf and go without it but I have been trying Game Golf with Apple watch for 3 rounds now.

 

Works okay as a GPS with Apple Watch but you can't even call it a shot tracker. Some holes it doesn't even pick up a shot, some half, about 1-2x/round it will get an entire hole right. You have to change every club on the shots it does track. I'm going to stick with it just for the scorecards but have given up even trying to look at my round after. The Swing ID is a cool idea but showing me swinging in-out 10 deg on a shot that had a 20 yard fade to it... 

 

I still have sensors that are grandfathered in the to the no-subscription model so i'll probably go back to Arccos for a bit but can't see paying for it. 

[zap311]

I tried Arccos a couple years back and spent way too much time correcting missed shots after each round. It was not worth the cost for me.

 

I signed up for GolfShot a few months ago and have been disappointed with it for different reasons. The user interface is not intuitive and I don't really understand how it's "guessing" which club I used (nor how to correct it). In my last round, it recorded 20+ shots on the first hole, rather than proceeding to the next hole, based upon GPS. 

 

I'm considering trying ShotScope with their watch + sensors as my last attempt to get on-course data insights.

[FloodedGolf]

I had the Garmin S62 for a while, totally agree with the limited amount of stats. It's really too bad they don't invest some more into the Garmin Golf app because the shot tracking is unmatched.

I switched over to using Golfshot Pro with an Apple Watch Ultra from the Garmin and it fills the requirement of additional stats but the tracked shots has been making me very frustrated. The auto swing detection works really well honestly, however whenever I go back and try to update my track shots its a nightmare to edit. Golfshot also doesn't do a great job of tracking fairways and the suggested clubs are almost always a club off for me. I've also had multiple times where the app locks me out and won't let me reopen without deleting and re-downloading the app.

 

I'm going back to Arccos with my Ultra mostly for the user interface for shot tracking and the analytics are the best of all the apps I have tried. I'm looking forward to more apps such as The Grint getting the auto-shot tracking technology (which they said is soon to be released for almost a year now) so I can try some others out.

[Walkerdb7]

@FloodedGolf what do you do with all the data? Sounds like you’ve used them all and for a long period of time?

[FloodedGolf]

8 hours ago, Walkerdb7 said:

@FloodedGolf what do you do with all the data? Sounds like you’ve used them all and for a long period of time?

Mostly just trying to identify areas of improvement and a better baseline of my club distances. I'm more just a data junky and enjoy looking at how my game in changes. I used arccos in the past for about a year and the UI and stats are top tier. It helps you understand your best approach distances, where you're missing most, where your losing the most strokes, etc. Golf shot does similar stats but much less robust. Plus ultimately for Golfshot, I have to edit each round and update the club I actually used because the suggest club distances are just way off. That's the main reason I'm switching back to Arccos.

[Tumadre1337]

I've tried both, currently using arccos, the sensors can be annoying but not having to adjust what club youre using etc is great.

[Walkerdb7]

5 hours ago, FloodedGolf said:

Mostly just trying to identify areas of improvement and a better baseline of my club distances. I'm more just a data junky and enjoy looking at how my game in changes. I used arccos in the past for about a year and the UI and stats are top tier. It helps you understand your best approach distances, where you're missing most, where your losing the most strokes, etc. Golf shot does similar stats but much less robust. Plus ultimately for Golfshot, I have to edit each round and update the club I actually used because the suggest club distances are just way off. That's the main reason I'm switching back to Arccos.

Yes, I have used it on and off for 3 years. I love the data and it's amazing how much they have improved it, but it rarely tells me something I don't know? That's why I get stuck with what to do with the data, haha.

It tells me to hit less balls OB and my sore will come down... like Thanks arccos, I wish it were that easy! Only years of lessons on that particular topic!!!

I like it, but not sure I make an impactful use of it