Accessories: Quickrange GPS

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By Dave Koster via TheSandTrap.com

With the USGA decision to allow the use of distance measuring devices, the market for laser rangefinders and GPS units has grown considerable in the last year with companies coming out with various approaches to help golfers judge distance. Can a talking GPS unit be far behind? Well, look no further as it has already arrived with the Quickrange GPS unit. The Quickrange GPS bills itself as "the simplest distance to green device available" and while that may be true in some sense, there are still some frustrations
that hopefully will be resolved in future updates.

I have never used any sort of distance measuring device prior to using the Quickrange unit so I was a bit intrigued to see if would not only help with cutting a few strokes off my game due to better distance control but also would speed up my round of golf as now I didn't have to pace off yardages from various markers or sprinkler heads. Did it help with either? I was surprised that it wasn't necessarily the case in either at the beginning but changed after just a couple of rounds. The Quickrange unit comprises
of only three buttons, a Hold/On/Off button, a Store Green Button and a Distance to Green Button. That's it. No LCD screen, no menus to scroll through, just three simple buttons. If you can use a mouse, you can use the Quickrange.


Testing I used the Quickrange for several rounds this past fall (including two at the Newport Cup) and found it to be very easy to use (although I wish the battery life was a bit longer). The distances were accurate and for a mid/high handicap golfer, distance to the middle of the green is all I need.


If the course you are playing is not available to download, you can simply map it out yourself (detail the steps). Website Conclusion At first, I didn't find that the Quickrange helped me out with either speeding up my game or with distance control but it more to do with the trust factor that is needed to use one of these devices. Your eyes can seemingly play tricks with you but once you accept the yardage being told to you is correct, you quickly adapt and I found myself a little lost for the rounds where I
didn't have it (or didn't have a second set of batteries). There are still some issues that I would to see in future models (battery indicator being the biggest) and an easier way to download the course information

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