Golf GPS app for your phone?

garyt1957

What do you guys use?

braveheart

SkyDroid.
Now that I have a Garmin watch I rarely use it. Before that I used it often and liked it a lot.

mikeintopeka

braveheart SkyDroid.
Now that I have a Garmin watch I rarely use it. Before that I used it often and liked it a lot.

Former Skydroid user here too.
Now that I have a Bushnell laser, I rarely use it. Before that I used it often and liked it a lot. I've even mapped some remote courses that weren't in the Skydroid database. It was easy.

Ringoblack

My goto is a Callaway Eclipse with a fallback to Swammi 4000+. Have a laser, but do not use it.

Spartan

I have Swing by Swing on my phone. It's a free app. Since I have a rangefinder I don't use it much. I use it for things I can't measure with the rangefinder like a blind layup shot short of water so I know how far I can hit it. (There's a hole like that where I play my league).

It seems to work well.

Natpharm

Spartan
I have the same on my phone, but have only used it once (so far). Played a scramble late last season and when I tried to turn on my Garmin just before we teed off, I found that 'someone' had left it turned on from the previous round... dead as a doorknob. So I did a quick search for apps on my phone and picked Swing by Swing. It worked very well that day at a course I'd played before but didn't know like the back of my hand. It also comes with (at least for me) a steady stream of emails with either interesting stories, jokes, or ads for equipment. I would not say that this has bothered me, but I could see where it may someone else.

Spartan

Natpharm Yeah, I got the emails too. But I unsubscribed and they stopped.

Supp

SkyDroid user here. I've been using it for a few years now and no complaints.

SVonhof

I have had Skydroid for a few years now. I recently tried VPAR and I think it is a little better than Skydroid in that it allows you to see the satellite image and can drag the little thing around and it updates both the distance from you to that mark and from there to the green. I like that better than the Skydroid program.

But, I do have a regular GPS for golf that I will always use instead (unless I failed to load the course) on the regular courses I already know the layout on (don't need to see the satellite image to know what is there) because it's always on, no need to reach down to turn it on and wait a few seconds for it to update the signal, it's just always ready and I can glance at it faster than anything else.

ZWExton

SVonhof I recently tried VPAR and I think it is a little better than Skydroid in that it allows you to see the satellite image and can drag the little thing around and it updates both the distance from you to that mark and from there to the green. I like that better than the Skydroid program.

I use SkyDroid and I feel like I do what you're describing all the time. Hit "zoom" and you get the satellite overlay with all of the distance marks, and you can hold any spot on the map to see the distance to that spot from where you are.

SVonhof

ZWExton I use SkyDroid and I feel like I do what you're describing all the time. Hit "zoom" and you get the satellite overlay with all of the distance marks, and you can hold any spot on the map to see the distance to that spot from where you are.

VPAR gives you two distances though. To that point and from there to the green. It is easier to choose a good lay-up yardage when you see both.

BTW, I have a Moto G5 Plus (Costco for $180) and the last tournament we played, I had never been to that course before. I used my phone for GPS to get to the course (55 minutes), used VPAR on the course (~6 hours as the conditions were brutal and it slowed play quite a bit) and then GPS for driving home (80 minutes). I got home and my phone was at 65% charge.
We found out after playing that the course was closing in 4 days. That's one reason the course was so difficult, they stopped watering everything and you could not get the ball to stop on some of the greens and a few would have the ball rolling back to where you just putted from if you didn't hit it just right.

Provisional

I had several on my phone before I got my Sky caddy GPS watch . I ended up using a Bushnell Lazer instead as the phone battery life was an issue and it distracted me too much . With my GPS watch , I seldom need the lazer and a quick glance keeps my play fast.

PA-PLAYA

These apps must have greatly improved over the years. The one I purchased and tried to use several years ago wasn't accurate, had a very small database of courses listed, and drained my cellphone battery quite quickly.

Nice to hear that the technology has finally paired nicely between the apps and the smartphones.

I'll still use my laser range finder, but mostly because our greens at my club are huge and the difference between front, middle and back hole locations could be as much as 10 yards in some instances.