Game Golf tracking system (merged)

[larrybud]

What they need to do is put in the PGA Tour comparison values so you have a baseline for your stats without regards to others in their data set.

[QEight]

What they need to do is put in the PGA Tour comparison values so you have a baseline for your stats without regards to others in their data set.

 

And they could have that for each shot, i.e. you could see that what is Tour average from this shot location to hole.

[dcmidnight]

What they need to do is put in the PGA Tour comparison values so you have a baseline for your stats without regards to others in their data set.

 

And they could have that for each shot, i.e. you could see that what is Tour average from this shot location to hole.

 

But does that really help you? I dont know that I am too worried about the PGA tour average say from 200 yards and in - but I like knowing where I stand based on others in my skill range. *IF* I had confidence in their formulas and implementation - which I dont.

 

I still think there is so much potential here. But its unrealized potential. They have *so much* data in the backend database that I just feel like could be used in better ways. Unfortunately they seemed to have been focused on hardware upgrades like GG Live.

 

For example - from Day 1 I havent liked their "Approach the Green" numbers, I just dont get why they aren't utilizing GIR here. GIR is a universally accepted statistic that they already track. Why aren't they using it?

 

Last night was the first night I noticed an issue with the unit itself. It wasnt taking tags on the last 4 holes so I had to create them by hand. But yet when I plugged it in to upload the round, it was fully charge within 15-20 minutes or so, so it was not a battery problem during the round. Anyone else had this problem before?

[FAbb]

Is the back end software getting any better? I haven't even bothered to use my Game Golf all year long. It's going to stay that way, unless they really step it up.

[North Butte]

No improvements that I've seen over the past 6-8 months.

 

Some time soon I will dust mine off for a few rounds because I have recently changed driver3w/5w setup and want to check in on my distance and dispersion. The SG stuff is useless window dressing.

[North Butte]

I contacted Game Golf support and they were able to create a 27-hole version of my home course instead of having it as three 9-hole ones. So now my 18-hole rounds get uploaded intact no matter which combination of nines I play. Their customer support (at least on the mapping side that I've contacted) is great.

[Geaux Gators]

I use it to remember memorable rounds. So if I ever get the chance to play TPC sawgrass, I will be able to look at the 15 i take on the 17th.....

[Buddha]

I just bought a Pebble Time from CL today, and can't wait to try the Game Golf app on my next round. I used to have the actual unit, but I lost it during a round. I tried using the phone, and it was a bit tedious for me. With the Pebble Time, it seems like it will be quite simple, and easy to do. Like I said, I look forward to trying it, but likely won't get a chance until Wednesday or Thursday.

[phil75070]

In the app you can sort "insights" off the tee by course but you can't do that on line. I would also like to be able to view various insights, club performance. "off the tee", "Approach to the green, by course by hole. Seeing that I miss a certain fairway or green more often than others would personally provide me with a lot of good insight.

[North Butte]

Before buying a Game Golf my way of checking the status of my game once a year or so was to laboriously enter each shot's distance and lie (in the Broadie Strokes Gained framework) into a statistical analysis program, convert it to Strokes Gained scale and then crunch and crosstab it various ways to answer specific questions.

 

Between the tagging during a round, post-round editing, having to remember to charge the belt unit and the many limitations of what you can get out of their web site I'm about to decide to just go back to the old way. It took at least twice as much time but yielded far more than twice as much useful information.

[dcmidnight]

Was actually excited to get an email from GG today talking about new features.

 

Glad they are spending the time and money on the important things....

 

 

 

GET FIT WITH GAME GOLF

With so much talk around health and fitness for golfers, we released a newGAME GOLF iOS update that will help you keep track of all those fitness stats that you have logged while out on the course.

• Total Steps
  
• Total Distance
  
• Total Calories Burned
  
• 
  

[QEight]

Was actually excited to get an email from GG today talking about new features.

 

Glad they are spending the time and money on the important things....

 

 

 

GET FIT WITH GAME GOLF

 

With so much talk around health and fitness for golfers, we released a newGAME GOLF iOS update that will help you keep track of all those fitness stats that you have logged while out on the course.

• Total Steps
  
• Total Distance
  
• Total Calories Burned
  
• 
  

 

I know this already, the (kilo)calories burned (about 1000). OTOH I do not have iOS device so I do not have to bother. Good.

[techjunkee]

I beg to differ with many criticisms of the unit and it's "window dressing" statistics. It's a fantastic device that is used in a variety of ways to not only historically keep track of your golf rounds; but also to isolate/identify problem areas in your game.

 

The post round editing is simple if you're motivated enough to spend a few minutes on your computer. As I can agree, the smartphone iPad editing interface is very cumbersome and time consuming.

 

Strokes gained stats and club/hole insights (window dressing) are actually very relevant and useful. I've taken the time to edit every round putt locations and flag position since I first started using the device. The results are fantastic.

 

PS: Their customer support is second to none!

[North Butte]

Every time you hit a tee shot into trouble and have to chip out, their Stroke Gained counts the chip-out as one stroke wasted on your "Approach Game". So that means every time you have to recover from a bad tee shot it transfers one stroke that ought to be reflected in "Tee Shot" into the "Approach" category.

 

This is not a serious game improvement tool. Anything that tells you you're hitting bad approach shots Every Single Time you hit a driver into the trees is a joke. Unless they implement a way to track "obstructed" lies (which is impossible given their course maps) they are using the term "Strokes Gained" in a misleading fashion that is nothing like Broadie's usage of the term.

 

There are similar problems, although for most people it occurs much less often, when a bad "Approach Shot" leaves you with an obstructed lie within 50 yards of the green. I know in my game it is not unheard of to hit an iron shot into trees or bushes near the green. In that case a stroke of recovery from the bad approach will show up in their stats as a stroke wasted in "Short Game" even if you in fact hit a solid recovery shot out of the obstructed lie.

 

That's what I mean by "window dressing". They describe it as something useful for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your game when in fact it is telling you some unknowable mixture of actual game-analysis data and complete garbage.

 

P.S. Also, penalty strokes are not correctly reflected in GG's so-called Strokes Gained.

 

P.P.S. And don't get me started on their short-game and putting "advice" feature.

[techjunkee]

Slow down my man...

 

No one said it's the end all stat recorder for golf.

 

No said it's 100% accurate.

 

You're wishing this handy little belt-clipped device to work miracles. It's not the HAL 9000. It is a serious recreational game improvement tool that should simply be used as such. A GPS tracking device for us average Joe's playing weekend rounds of golf, to tell us when we miss the FWY/GRN etc.

 

Common sense need be present if you wish to delineate the rest of what you speak from the magic red box on your hip.

 

It does vibrate when I fart tho.

[North Butte]

I don't expect it to work miracles. After a year of using it, I expect it to give me detailed distance and dispersion information on each club in my bag. Which is does nicely and that justifies the minimal cost of buying and using it.

 

Any description of Game Golf as:

 

It's a fantastic device that is used in a variety of ways to not only historically keep track of your golf rounds; but also to isolate/identify problem areas in your game.

 

might as well be asking for miracles unless by "problem areas" you mean tendencies to hit certain club left/right/short/long. It can not do anything beyond those things.

[dcmidnight]

Every time you hit a tee shot into trouble and have to chip out, their Stroke Gained counts the chip-out as one stroke wasted on your "Approach Game". So that means every time you have to recover from a bad tee shot it transfers one stroke that ought to be reflected in "Tee Shot" into the "Approach" category.

 

This is not a serious game improvement tool. Anything that tells you you're hitting bad approach shots Every Single Time you hit a driver into the trees is a joke. Unless they implement a way to track "obstructed" lies (which is impossible given their course maps) they are using the term "Strokes Gained" in a misleading fashion that is nothing like Broadie's usage of the term.

 

There are similar problems, although for most people it occurs much less often, when a bad "Approach Shot" leaves you with an obstructed lie within 50 yards of the green. I know in my game it is not unheard of to hit an iron shot into trees or bushes near the green. In that case a stroke of recovery from the bad approach will show up in their stats as a stroke wasted in "Short Game" even if you in fact hit a solid recovery shot out of the obstructed lie.

 

That's what I mean by "window dressing". They describe it as something useful for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your game when in fact it is telling you some unknowable mixture of actual game-analysis data and complete garbage.

 

P.S. Also, penalty strokes are not correctly reflected in GG's so-called Strokes Gained.

 

P.P.S. And don't get me started on their short-game and putting "advice" feature.

 

All of this.

 

Their strokes gained stats aren't even accurate. They've changed the Short Game stat 3x already this year. The SG putting app is still inaccurate for a few reasons. If you want a real SG putting app, put your putts into something like strokesgainecalc and you will get much different results.

 

Its more of an entertainment unit for me now more than anything.

 

I dont have much $$ into it, so its a sunk cost for me but I've had it for going on two years and its pretty clear they aren't spending a lot of money on any major backend improvments.

[matchavez]

A few quick observations, because I'm feeling both sides of the discussion above...

 

First, after a couple of years with it, it is a mixed bag. I never use the old device anymore; the phone-connected new one allows me to keep score, so it's two-in-one for me. No, I don't keep a paper card. If for nothing else, this is why I keep using it.

 

Second, there is a lot of bellyaching about stats. GOOD! Stats aren't that hard. Plenty of sites do them just fine. The real kicker is that GameGolf has a huge inherent advantage of having your stroke location... but it somehow doesn't accept that you may know more about your situation than they do. It would be good if we had a little more information... simple stuff like "how far and how far off line was my 8-iron in the last 12 months?" The terrible part is that it HAS THAT DATA. Anyone who wanted dietary information was either already wearing a fitbit, tracking it on their phone, or hell even manually putting it in. I know it's marketing, but that sucks. I want to see "wow, you pull your x iron a lot more than the others" or "you tend to fade driver in the afternoon". That's usable. how about looking at some of your full shots and relating them to starting temperature? Pie in the sky? Shouldn't be...

 

Instead, we get Graeme McDowell's latest round.

 

Finally, I do not expect miracles. Miracles are things like always getting it right when you're on the green or fringe. It's GPS, not ShotLink. I have proper expectations; all that's happening is you get a long/lat, time, and club_id (or if you bend over to get a ball, or otherwise trigger the gyro off the green as a possible shot). That's it. Everything else is an assumption. Like calories... all it's doing is calculating the distance between all your shots and applying an estimated burn rate. It's maths. That's it. Everything is being done after you enter your data. In fact, that's the product really.

 

So hopefully someone sees this as an opportunity. I can tag away, but that's only valuable if you start returning more meaningful data. I personally do not believe that the data is "maxed out". What's my GIR with PW? 7-iron? Sand save %? (You'd have to indicate you're *in* sand) How about simple things like when you hit the fairway, do you have a heavy left-right tendency? On any given hole, where did your tee shot land in the last 20 rounds?

 

Ultimately, what I think GG's "killer feature" would be is a "Round Planner". Simply put, based on your stats, here are some suggestions on how to play a round at X golf course. That's probably approaching "miracle" status, but GolfShot does it on my phone in real time now. It's not even legal because it's on-course advice. Imagine if GG did that...

 

In fact, it would be nice if those two companies made a baby. :)

[dcmidnight]

I've said from the beginning the reason I keep using it is because all of this data is just sitting in a database somewhere and I hope like heck they figure out a better way to use it at some point.

 

But there have been no major updates to the back end GUI/software in over two years. The "Approach the Green" page is a good example. From Day 1 I wanted to know - why isnt this GIR instead? You already calculate if I hit GIR on a particular hole so you can already measure that.

 

What good does it do me to know that from inside 100 yards I only hit 66% of "A 15 yard radius circle around where the pin is". Thats terrible. There have been times where I've hit a GIR on a shot like that but since the first putt is say 60 feet long - it falls outside that window so it looks like I left my shot "short" of their "green".

 

Now, tell me that I only hit 66% GIR inside 100 yards, thats something I can work with. And frankly it just makes more golf sense. People understand that.

 

Its little things like that. But unfortunately they add up. And then you see that they've spent development time on things like a pedometer fitness function and it just makes me crazy.

[kiw1982]

I am new to this so forgive me.

 

I had two rounds with game golf live.

But I think this gps doesn't recognize the bunker.

 

I got the trap twice and I tag my club at right center of the bunkers.

Also, I couldn't find any option to edit it.

 

Is there anything I can do?

 

Thanks.

[QEight]

I am new to this so forgive me.

 

I had two rounds with game golf live.

But I think this gps doesn't recognize the bunker.

 

I got the trap twice and I tag my club at right center of the bunkers.

Also, I couldn't find any option to edit it.

 

Is there anything I can do?

 

Thanks.

 

You are talking about the mobile app or the original red/grey box?

[ParHunter]

I am new to this so forgive me.

 

I had two rounds with game golf live.

But I think this gps doesn't recognize the bunker.

 

I got the trap twice and I tag my club at right center of the bunkers.

Also, I couldn't find any option to edit it.

 

Is there anything I can do?

 

Thanks.

 

When you look at the map, is the shot located in the bunker?

 

If not just drag the location into the bunker. GPS is only accurate to +/- 5 yards.

If it is in the bunker but not being treated as a bunker shot (e.g. no sand save) then the course is probably not mapped correctly. The google/bing images are all a few years old normally. If bunkers where added/removed the 'geo fencing' of the course will be wrong. Just send an email to the GameGolf support, best with a screen shot. They are normally quick in fixing any issues with the mapping.

[kiw1982]

I am new to this so forgive me.

 

I had two rounds with game golf live.

But I think this gps doesn't recognize the bunker.

 

I got the trap twice and I tag my club at right center of the bunkers.

Also, I couldn't find any option to edit it.

 

Is there anything I can do?

 

Thanks.

 

I am talking about the app and I am using game golf live device also.

Sorry for the confusion BTW.

 

You are talking about the mobile app or the original red/grey box?

 

I am new to this so forgive me.

 

I had two rounds with game golf live.

But I think this gps doesn't recognize the bunker.

 

I got the trap twice and I tag my club at right center of the bunkers.

Also, I couldn't find any option to edit it.

 

Is there anything I can do?

 

Thanks.

 

When you look at the map, is the shot located in the bunker?

 

If not just drag the location into the bunker. GPS is only accurate to +/- 5 yards.

If it is in the bunker but not being treated as a bunker shot (e.g. no sand save) then the course is probably not mapped correctly. The google/bing images are all a few years old normally. If bunkers where added/removed the 'geo fencing' of the course will be wrong. Just send an email to the GameGolf support, best with a screen shot. They are normally quick in fixing any issues with the mapping.

 

Thank you for the answer.

It works!!

[larciel]

anybody tried golfpad tags? I hate putting my phone in my pocket during round so I didn't buy it, but they're coming out with separate gps holder. I haven't used golfpad for a long time but I know they update their apps frequently and listen to users for any improvements. So I'm pretty sure all the details missing with gamegolf's info might be implemented with golfpad.

[ParHunter]

Has anyone tried the GameGolf app on the Apple Watch? I am looking for a replacement for my Skycaddie Linx watch now that I have the Apple Watch.

The app should give me NCF (Near/Centre/Far) distances (where the green is mapped and the distances for near and far are not to fixed points but change depending on the angle of approach).

 

I've tried the GameGolf app as it seems it would give me that but the distances did not update! I would select a hole and the distances would not update after that!

[larciel]

gamegolf app is horrible. it's reason gamegolf live bombed and now is selling at cost for $149.

[dcmidnight]

I had an interesting issue happen with one of the tags that I hadnt seen before. In the middle of a couple rounds the last few weeks I thought the unit was having issues by not reading my 6 iron tag. When I looked closer at it, turns out that somehow the top piece of the tag had come off and the lower section had stayed screwed in - I just hadn't noticed it. Over two years old now, not super surprised. But I emailed them with the issue and they are sending a replacement tag free of charge.

[Geaux Gators]

I had the same thing happen to my 7 iron.

 

I have all but given up on GameGolf. I love my PureGrips. But the hole on them is large due to them being put on with an air gun. I keep losing tags. I have bought two sets, and they have sent me a set. I have tried everything from plumbers tape to make the threads larger, to crazy glue. the crazy glue works for about 10 rounds, then I will be missing a tag. Sucks

 

I liked everything about it except that

[techjunkee]

I had the same thing happen to my 7 iron.

 

I have all but given up on GameGolf. I love my PureGrips. But the hole on them is large due to them being put on with an air gun. I keep losing tags. I have bought two sets, and they have sent me a set. I have tried everything from plumbers tape to make the threads larger, to crazy glue. the crazy glue works for about 10 rounds, then I will be missing a tag. Sucks

 

I liked everything about it except that

 

Sorry to hear that. Definitely their one true downfall was the initial durability of the tags, and also not offering them in like say an XL thread base for grips with larger butt end port.

[dciccoritti]

I had an interesting issue happen with one of the tags that I hadnt seen before. In the middle of a couple rounds the last few weeks I thought the unit was having issues by not reading my 6 iron tag. When I looked closer at it, turns out that somehow the top piece of the tag had come off and the lower section had stayed screwed in - I just hadn't noticed it. Over two years old now, not super surprised. But I emailed them with the issue and they are sending a replacement tag free of charge.

 

I've had 5 tags break off at the top with the screw portion still in the grip. I can't take the screw out so it's costing me new grips. Decided to use Game Golf next year but just tap my clubs on the phone.