The caddy on your wrist
Garmin’s smartwatch won’t make you a better golfer, but will tee you up nicely for a day on the course
Garmin have been keeping people on track for almost three decades. Sailors, pilots and climbers have been using the firm’s tech to stay safe and on course, and even to find fish along the way. Today though, Garmin is also a leading maker of wearable tech and are a favourite among high-performance athletes, cyclists and, surprisingly, even golfers.
The Approach S60 golf watch is a sleek-looking gadget when you take it out of the box. It’s available in black or white with a tough silicone band but there’s a premium version with a leather band that has a ceramic bezel. Thankfully, given our weather, the device is also water resistant to 50 metres, meaning you can safely swim or shower while wearing it.
Although designed for golfers, this watch has the standard smartwatch features. I needed to download the Garmin Connect app for my smartphone, but the entire set-up took around ten minutes. Many golfers don’t wear a watch when playing, but the Approach is lightweight at just 45g and has a clear but discreet colour screen.
There are more than 40,000 courses around the world in the Garmin database. I wondered if there were many Irish courses on the database and found the listings to be exhaustive. From Abbeyleix to Bandon and on to Royal Dublin, all of the well-known courses are there.
In all, there are upwards of 300 courses around the country in the database, including 75 in County Dublin. As soon as you select your course on the watch, you’ll be prompted to select which tees you’re playing from. Once under way, the watch starts feeding you statistics about your game. After you tee off, and walk towards the ball the watch will calculate, using GPS accuracy, the length of your drive. As you walk towards the green, the watch will display the length to the back, middle and front of the green, updating with every step. The watch also displays a small map of the layout of the course including fairway, water, rough and bunkers.
One of the stand-out features is the PinPointer function. So if you’re in the rough or playing a dog-leg, the S60 acts like a sort of compass to the pin. It displays distance and an arrow directly to the green so you can set up your shot when you don’t have a clear view to the hole.
The battery life is around ten APPROACH S60 IS AS VALUABLE AS AN EXTRA CLUB IN THE BAG hours, but well over a week in standard watch mode. If you’re still on the course after ten hours, something has gone badly wrong. However, I would like to see a longer battery life that could get you through a couple of days.
Overall though, this gadget brings remarkable technology to golfers. The ability to record your scores and view a leaderboard of other players adds a wonderful community element to the setup.
The smartwatch and other fitness functions are an added bonus and while it’s not a small investment, the Approach S60 is as valuable as an extra club in the bag. Pros: Incredibly accurate measurements Maps for 40,000 courses Cons: Battery life could be a little better Not a small investment