Skycaddie SG 2.5

[DrSchteeve]

Sweet!!!

Just used today for the first time. Couldn't have been easier. Downloaded software on my Mac, downloaded 9 courses that I play locally, all 4 star mapped. Distances spot on, easy to scroll through targets, intelligreen worked fine. All the courses in Hilton Head that I play during my yearly golf trip are also 4 star mapped. Costs me $40/year for 2 states worth of courses.

I considered the SG 5, but preferred the smaller size and cost. I tend to lose things, and I won't be as unhappy with losing a $250 unit as I would a $430 unit. Plus, I can read the 2.5 just fine, no problem with print legibility or size.

I'll keep my Bushnell Pinseeker for the range and for the occasional need on the course (once it gets back from repair; it hasn't been picking up targets lately).

This experience couldn't be more different that my experience with the GolfGuru, which I could never get to work (but I did get a prompt refund).

[Cuda Kota]

Just used today for the first time. Couldn't have been easier. Downloaded software on my Mac, downloaded 9 courses that I play locally, all 4 star mapped. Distances spot on, easy to scroll through targets, intelligreen worked fine. All the courses in Hilton Head that I play during my yearly golf trip are also 4 star mapped. Costs me $40/year for 2 states worth of courses.

 

I considered the SG 5, but preferred the smaller size and cost. I tend to lose things, and I won't be as unhappy with losing a $250 unit as I would a $430 unit. Plus, I can read the 2.5 just fine, no problem with print legibility or size.

 

I'll keep my Bushnell Pinseeker for the range and for the occasional need on the course (once it gets back from repair; it hasn't been picking up targets lately).

 

This experience couldn't be more different that my experience with the GolfGuru, which I could never get to work (but I did get a prompt refund).

 

I'm glad you got things resolved to your satisfaction, Doc!

 

I'm taking my SG2.5 out on "Dad's Day" and see how it works. The SG5 was very nice :russian_roulette: , but I, like you, like the extra $$$ in my pocket.

 

If you have any bad experiences with Sky Golf or your SG2.5, be sure to post so all can make informed decisions. And continue to post the +s also. I'll do the same.

[HackerDave]

That's good to hear. I'm getting mine for fathers day (don't tell anyone I have already loaded the courses). We will be in HHI for two weeks and all the courses we play there are 4 star rated. Can't wait to play with it.

 

Where do you play there? We will play PD Jones, PH Hills, CC of HH, Cresent Pointe and probably Daufuskie. Have never tried HH National or Island West.

[DrSchteeve]

We play Daufuskie - awesome day trip (or overnite, for that matter) and Sea Pines Ocean and HarbourTown. Sea Pines Heron Point will be a great course, but it is a bit young, meaning the tiny undulating greens are rock hard and very hard to hold. Crescent Pointe is a decent track. Hilton Head National is also good, 27 holes. If you want to splurge, CQ's is a great dinner spot.

[tbowles411]

I just bought one. I'm anxious to see how it works. I too loved all the same features as the SG5, but smaller and cheaper!

[Escueleto]

I am on the way to Roger Dunn to get the 2.5 ...also a fathers Day gift from the wife and kids . I am not sold 100.00% on the GPS or range finders but it is a gift so it wont hurt as bad if I dont like it.. But everyone I talk to that has one wouldnt play without it again !! Anyone else have these same thoughts prior to purchasing but after use are sold on the product?

 

thanks just looking for some validation from others that i am not the only one who has these feelings???

[golf_fanatik]

I have a question for you SG2.5 owners.

 

My friend just got one but we can't make the backlight stay on longer than 30 seconds. Is there a special setting or control to do it? The only way we found is to push the on/off button and hit "backlight" but it only stays on 30 seconds.

 

Can you leave it on longer? It is annoying because it goes off and then have to push the power button again.

 

I had a SG5 and I thought there was a setting where you could automatically set the backlight to always stay on.

 

Help!

 

Thanks,

[DrSchteeve]

I have a question for you SG2.5 owners.

 

My friend just got one but we can't make the backlight stay on longer than 30 seconds. Is there a special setting or control to do it? The only way we found is to push the on/off button and hit "backlight" but it only stays on 30 seconds.

 

Can you leave it on longer? It is annoying because it goes off and then have to push the power button again.

 

I had a SG5 and I thought there was a setting where you could automatically set the backlight to always stay on.

 

Help!

 

Thanks,

 

Not aware of a setting that will let you do this. I'm also having a hard time understanding why you would want to. If it's that hard for you to see, you probably need a different unit. I am 52, with fairly poor vision, and I have no problem seeing everything on the 2.5 without a backlight.

[DrSchteeve]

I am on the way to Roger Dunn to get the 2.5 ...also a fathers Day gift from the wife and kids . I am not sold 100.00% on the GPS or range finders but it is a gift so it wont hurt as bad if I dont like it.. But everyone I talk to that has one wouldnt play without it again !! Anyone else have these same thoughts prior to purchasing but after use are sold on the product?

 

thanks just looking for some validation from others that i am not the only one who has these feelings???

 

I thought the Bushnell Pinseeker was all that I needed. Then I realized that I do a lot of layup shots, and knowing exact distances to hazards, or even just exact distances to my ideal layup distance (for me, 100 yards), would be helpful. I don't think I will go back to life without a unit. If I had to choose (which I don't) I would keep the 2.5 before the Bushnell.

[golf_fanatik]

Thanks Dr.

 

Some of us play night golf and therefore a backlight is very useful. The lack of a backlight is one of the main cons I found with the Guru. I wish you could leave the backlight on as long as you wanted just like with the Buddy... you can set it up so that it goes off in a predetermined time and any button touch causes the backlight to turn on automatically without pushing extra buttons..

[bigstunnerdude]

You can change the length of time the backlight stays on in the menu. Go to Preferences and down at the bottom is the time setting for the backlight. You can change to 100 seconds Maximum.

[23muc]

I believe that is a brightness setting you are refering to.

You may change the brightness of the backlight from 0-100

but the time remains at 30 seconds

[DrSchteeve]

Thanks Dr.

 

Some of us play night golf and therefore a backlight is very useful. The lack of a backlight is one of the main cons I found with the Guru. I wish you could leave the backlight on as long as you wanted just like with the Buddy... you can set it up so that it goes off in a predetermined time and any button touch causes the backlight to turn on automatically without pushing extra buttons..

 

Night golf?! Cool! I stand corrected.

[golf_fanatik]

It appears that only the SG5 has an automatic backlight and the SG2.5 goes off after 30 sec. It makes sense to me they had to compromise somewhere in order to offer the SG2.5 for $180 less than the SG5.

 

I still like the SG2.5 a lot.

[Escueleto]

Thanks for the reply.. i purchased the 2.5 on Friday used it yesterday and very happy with the gift..

[alb]

wow.. I just got a SG2.5 for father's day today. Hopefully I'll get the same success as you guys who likes this unit? I'm excited to try it out.

[Bogey2Eagle]

Is it redundant to use both a Pinseeker and Skycaddie? The other day I tried out the 2.5 for the first time and found the most useful thing is the length of the green. I had to ask my buddy to check the flag distance with his pinseeker and relied on that to know what I had in front and behind the flag but would like to just rely on just one type of range finder.

 

Do you scope and use the skycaddie or just make guesstimates on where the flag is based on color?

[Bogey2Eagle]

Curious, since its not in the manual icon descriptions. What does "To BackCutBackT" mean?

[sdwillis]

I have a bushnell and my buddy has a 2.5. We play a game where he guesses the pin placement with his 2.5 and then I laser it. He's almost always within a yard or two of the acutal yardage. I like them both, 2.5 for lay ups and the range finder for 120 yards in.

[23muc]

Not positive BogeytoEagle....

but I think it is distance to the farthest point of the back most tee box

in other words, if you are playing the blues and there is a tee box behind you (say the black) then it would be the distance from where you are teeing off to the farthest point back at which you could tee if you're at the farthest point possible on the hole

 

If your position on the blues is at 380 and the back of the blacks was at 420 ... the "To BackcutbackT" = 40

[GDWindowpane]

Sounds like some of us had a pretty good Father's Day. I too received a 2.5 from the wife/kids... Played a quick nine yesterday afternoon and love it... Only on one hole did the yardages not match the markers on the course. I'm quite confident that it was the

markers and not the SkyCaddie.

 

Course management was awesome. Still trying to figure out the "leaves" options and the fairway targets but knowing the carrying distances for the hazards were great. Being able to mark your ball for distance was a pro and con. Cool feature but a little deflating when you think you really bombed a drive and it only goes 267...

 

Only feature that I think would be a big asset would be pin placements. At my club they have 6 pin placements, I would think that it wouldn't be too hard to program them into the unit. When you start your round, select the course, and then the pin placement. You could then narrow down the yardages to the pin zone instead of From, Middle and Back.

 

Has anyone messed around with the pro green setting (I think that is what it's called?) where the unit gives yardages to the square on the front of the green? Not sure why this would be useful?

 

Can't wait to get back on the course and mess around with it some more. So far I'm very pleased...

[DrSchteeve]

When you are showing the Intelligreen, you can use the scroll function to move the pin placement left and right, forward and back.

[Cuda Kota]

Course management was awesome. Still trying to figure out the "leaves" options and the fairway targets but knowing the carrying distances for the hazards were great. Being able to mark your ball for distance was a pro and con. Cool feature but a little deflating when you think you really bombed a drive and it only goes 267...

 

Only feature that I think would be a big asset would be pin placements. At my club they have 6 pin placements, I would think that it wouldn't be too hard to program them into the unit. When you start your round, select the course, and then the pin placement. You could then narrow down the yardages to the pin zone instead of From, Middle and Back.

 

Has anyone messed around with the pro green setting (I think that is what it's called?) where the unit gives yardages to the square on the front of the green? Not sure why this would be useful?

 

Can't wait to get back on the course and mess around with it some more. So far I'm very pleased...

 

The "leaves" reading & fairway target reading is just what it says; if a hole is 320 yards long, the fairway target may be 220 yds which leaves 100 to the center of the green. I don't know who/what determines the "fairway target" - sometimes I find them useful - other times not. I know what my favorite lay-up distance is & it's not always what the fairway target displays.

 

Got to finally get out yesterday (one day with no floods, tornadoes, locust.... :D ) here in Indiana. Played a course that I last played 10 years ago (with no SC) and was able to card a 77 with my SG2.5 - there's nothing better than knowing exact yardages IMO!! Like the commercial says....."it's like having your own tour caddie...". And count me as somone that will not play without a GPS.

 

Hope all the dads had a great day yesterday!!

[GDWindowpane]

When you are showing the Intelligreen, you can use the scroll function to move the pin placement left and right, forward and back.

 

Yeah, I was doing that yesterday, but wouldn't it be nice if it automatically put the cross hairs in the pin placement zone for that day based on what you enter at the beginning of the round?

 

The "leaves" reading & fairway target reading is just what it says; if a hole is 320 yards long, the fairway target may be 220 yds which leaves 100 to the center of the green. I don't know who/what determines the "fairway target" - sometimes I find them useful - other times not. I know what my favorite lay-up distance is & it's not always what the fairway target displays.

 

Got to finally get out yesterday (one day with no floods, tornadoes, locust.... :D ) here in Indiana. Played a course that I last played 10 years ago (with no SC) and was able to card a 77 with my SG2.5 - there's nothing better than knowing exact yardages IMO!! Like the commercial says....."it's like having your own tour caddie...". And count me as somone that will not play without a GPS.

 

Hope all the dads had a great day yesterday!!

 

Yeah, I wish they were customizable... Some of the fairway targets were over 300 yards. Now if you asked me last week I could reach them but now in my more humble reality 300 yards is just out of reach. And if the leaves could be customizable to certain distances, say 120 yards for my pw that would be great.

 

Still a fantastic unit. My two sons are performing additional testing right now while I'm at work. :D

[Carolina Golfer 2]

I'm a newbie, so I'll add my initial experience to this thread as well. Bought my 2.5 on this Monday, children or wife to get one as a gift from, so I was on my own. I had a buddie with me in the golf store who is a die hard Bushnell 1500 advocate. He didnt' really try and talk me out of it (boy am I glad he didn't) just kind of said it's up to you.

 

To the credit of the sales guy at Golf Galaxy, he told me the 2.5 was all I needed versus the more expensive units. Now the course I was going to play 54 holes on the next day was not loaded. It's a brand new course less than a month old. I was very tempted to jump in the car and drive the 40 miles and get in as many holes as I could to map my own course. But then an afternoon thunderstorm setttled that thought.

 

Instead I just decided to do the best I could on mapping each hole the first round and see how it worked for the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Since it was continuous play they wouldn't be moving the pins. This was a big stroke play event with a full field of 124 players, so I was a bit concerned about being able to map the greens and not hold up play or appear to be antisocial. It was no problem, on most holes I was able to get at least two of the three locations marked and on some all 3. At the start of the 2nd round, all the locations were there.

 

The only question that came up early in the 3rd round was "is the battery going to last for all 54 holes" I had only charged it for about 4 hours the night before, a buddy told me I should have done all night the first time. So I started turning it off after I hit my approach shots and leaving it off until I got to the tee of the next hole. It ended up lasting. I now have it fully charged and 7 of my regular courses loaded ready for the first round with a mapped course, I'm looking forward to that.

 

One last thing, to me one of the hidden benefits that I didnt' think of, is getting the exact distance on short shots, like 30 to 60 yard pitches. Now when I see I have 43 yards on a pitch, I'll hit the shot and be able to remember and relate that length of swing the next time for that distance.

 

I'm more than pleased with mine so far. Sorry for the long post.

[uptonspark]

Just used my Fathers day gift for the first time and I am now firmly in the must have GPS camp. I honestly think it saved me 4-5 shots, especially when I had to fire over trees after missing the short grass and carry water in front of the green.

I came off at the end and felt like I'd played an intelligent 18 holes. All the yardages are there to see immediately so you don't have to waste time deciding which tree they mean the yardage is measured from on the strokesaver.

[Carolina Golfer 2]

Just used my Fathers day gift for the first time and I am now firmly in the must have GPS camp. I honestly think it saved me 4-5 shots, especially when I had to fire over trees after missing the short grass and carry water in front of the green.

I came off at the end and felt like I'd played an intelligent 18 holes. All the yardages are there to see immediately so you don't have to waste time deciding which tree they mean the yardage is measured from on the strokesaver.

Well I've gotten two rounds in with a mapped course. Both rounds on my home course. At first I didn't think the SC would help me much on my course as I play it 30 plus times a year and pretty much know it inside out. But I have found it very helpful, and on one particular hole during the first round with it, I hit one more club than I normally would have hit from the same spot previously and stuck it 8 feet from a back left pin (missed the putt, but hey the SC can't do everything for you)

 

Thinking back over the two rounds I think the one tale/tale factor is I can only remember one shot that I came up woefully short on and that was due to more wind than I thought and a less than perfect pass at the ball. Having the 3 distances at a glance really helps.

 

I have also used the mark feature on several of my drives and my partners drives and found that my best drives are going about 260'ish and on average in the 245 range. I wasn't one that thought I was bombing everything 300 yards, but I would have probably guessed 10 yards more than the actual results have

shown.

 

I can honestly say it has saved me 3 to 5 shots per round, it's just unfortunate that my driver and or putter has eaten up those strokes in both rounds. The putter is the new Spyder and with the exception of yesterday's round, it has been fantastic. I attribute yesterday's poor putting to greens that just had me befuddled. I've never seen the greens on this course so slow, and I just never got comfortable with the speed.

 

I am anxious to get to some other courses in the area that I don't play reguarly to see how the SC helps me on those.

[seadoc]

Hey all- so the last few days I have changed my mind between laser & gps multiple times, but I think I'll probably go with the gps and the sg 2.5

 

Does the 2.5 let you add or edit your own targets (I'm thinking fairway/hazard targets only) on a 4-star mapped course? (or do you have to map your own course from scratch?)

 

 

If so, how many targets can be added on a 4-star course?

 

thanks!

[golf_fanatik]

You cannot edit or add points to a premapped course with the Sky Caddies. You would have to do your own map.

 

The Guru, Buddy, iGolf let you add/edit points in their premapped courses.

[phil75070]

You cannot edit or add points to a premapped course with the Sky Caddies. You would have to do your own map.

 

The Guru, Buddy, iGolf let you add/edit points in their premapped courses.

 

Can you even map anything but front, center and back of greens with any of the SkyCaddie devices?