Laser owner played first round with Approach S3

[thejuice]

So I played my first round today with my new toy, a Garmin Approach S3. My goal was to play the round along with my Leupold GX-3i because I played a course with a lot of blind shots and hazards. Well, my plan wasn't completely fool-proof because I left my Leupold at home. What an idiot!!! I'd played my last eight rounds with the Leupold so I felt sort of naked without it. That thing has saved me a ton of strokes.

 

Needless to say, I had to put all of my faith in the Approach S3 and I was very impressed by its performance. The thing is VERY accurate and extremely easy to use. It is very light, so much so that I would forget I had it on. I hit a few approaches to within 5 ft and the readings on the blind shots were great because it helped me to determine the shape of the green (even though I couldn't see the pin know where the center of the green looked like helped a ton). I took tomorrow off so I'm hoping to play a round using both and I'll report how well they pair up.

[thejuice]

I was able to play today and made sure I had all my toys and I really enjoyed the round. First off, I had my Leupold GX-3i that I got for Father's Day (I purchased using gift card credits to Golfsmith) and then I was just surprised with an Approach S3 (a gift from my employees who happened to see it on my computer). My buddy I was playing with commented on the first hole but all day asked, "what does the laser say" or "what does your watch say". I can see great value in having both and I used both quite a lot without slowing down my round at all (played in less than four hours with a crowded back 9).

Why have both? Honestly, having both is totally not necessary but since they were both gifts, and I will be playing some tourneys soon, I will use them to my best ability. I have come to truly LOVE and TRUST the GX-3i and that showed today. Having the S3 was also great because it helps with the decision to play to the center as it shows without moving the pin, versus going pinseeking. The course I played today didn't have colored flags and since it's a Monday, the starter was some ol' Jim-Bob who didn't even know the pin positions so we could have been shooting blind, or shooting at sticks all day (which isn't always smart) but instead, we were getting GIRs.

Final verdict: Definitely no need for both but I still prefer laser to GPS, however, if you have to have a gps then the S3 is the way to go!!!

[Nick-A]

Nice write up.
If been thinking about getting an S3 for a while now since it looks like it's totally unintrusive on your game. But was wondering about accuracy.
Now waiting untill I can splurge on it budgetwise . You must be a good boss, receiving presents from your employees. All I get is sick leave applications

[craz-e]

Always good to hear from someone testing one against another on the course, thanks for posting

[Stuart_G]

Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about upgrading to the S3 from my neo (also have a laser). One question about the s3, I know they can be added but do the stock distances include hazard lay-up and carry distances?

[thejuice]

According to the instructions, you have to load the hazard distances (which I noticed was not auto-loaded when faced with two lakes I had to carry). Since I don't play one particular course, I haven't thought to take the time to save hazards. I think this is one of the advantages of the laser.

It seems the next best (and perfect) thing would be a laser GPS watch aboud the size of an S3. Sounds straight futuristic but I would love that!!!