Golf forum

Anyone who already has a GPS device, such as a handheld or mobile phone sat nav which runs on microsoft windows mobile platforms. Visit www.freecaddie.com and download the free GPS software and install it on your GPS, you will need to register but its all free. Download various courses from the database or create your own. Tried it out today on my handheld PC (hp iPaq Travel Companion) sat nav and it was spot on for yardage markers. Very impressive and best of all its FREE.

There is already quite an impressive database of courses in the UK and its quite easy to create your own course map using google earth, all the instructions are on the site. I created Atherstone and Amington and they were spot on when I walked the courses to test it. If enough of us use it we should cover all the courses we are likely to play.

doesn't work on a nokia n95??? & you need a password to open a course you create yourself???

something smells a bit fishy 

John

Nothing fishy about it honest, not an evaluation copy and likely to be an open source product soon. I am a systems engineer and all is well, used it again today. The forums will answer your problems. Passwords are not needed, you copy the zip file direct to the "Courses" folder in program files and the software opens them automatically.

Regarding the Nokia n95, correct, it will not run on this, the software will only run on windows based mobiles, therfore your mobile OS needs to be Microsoft Windows Mobile Versions. It does say that it is currently for Windows Mobile users on the software download page!

For all windows mobile users try it, realy good.

Pat,

Create your own course in Ireland, realy easy to do, just drag and drop markers on to a satelite picture of your chosen course. This is new and relies on us to "map" courses for us all to share.

The courses I have done took me 15 minutes each course. I only mapped Front, Middle and Back of Green, Fairway Bunkers, Water Hazards and Dogleg Turns, Didn't bother with greenside bunkers. I then walked the course and it was spot on.

Peter,

I've downloaded and installed to my HTC Tytn II.  Looks like i'll have to do this by walking the course.  When i go to Create Course there are no options other than the search course box, which is useless to me.  You mentioned drag and drop, perhaps the functionality of that isnt working right now, any ideas? Also you mentioned Google Maps, but i see only some Microsoft crap available for mapping which again is useless to me here in Ireland.

Its a great piece of software so long as people go out and do some nice accurate mapping i guess.

Also, do you know whether maps for other GPS systems are compatible with this software?

Thanks! 

Sorry I took so long to respond, Regarding mapping courses, you do this on the freecaddie site, go to thier site and create a course. You find the course using their google earth. You can now map the course and save it. Download the course to your computer. Connect your mobile device to the computer and copy the saved course onto the mobile unit as per the instructions on the freecaddie site. Visit http://www.freecaddie.com/Support.aspx  for all the instructions. I have used it at lots of courses and it is bang on. The only downfall is you have to know the course beforehand in order to map it. 

Regards - Pete

Peter I've downloaded a couple of courses and the only thing you need to know is the Par for each hole, as Google sets the rest.

As for hazards/bunkers etc you can see them and therefore "flag" them front and back.

Doesn't work on the iPhone either...

JP you are correct it will not work on the iPhone as it runs on a macintosh platform, freecaddie is for microsoft windows mobile platforms as it says on the freecaddie site!!!

Wayne - If you are down loading a course from the freecaddie site there is no problem. But if you are creating a new course from scratch to upload to their database, this is when you need to know the course in order to id each hole when mapping. I have created about fifteen courses now and uploaded, quite easy to do.

I use freecaddie quite often, very impressive. But the best thing is it's free, (what a choker) there is a pro version for a small charge, but the standard is more than adequate for our needs.

A mate of mine has one of those fancy skycaddies, last week he asked to borrow my sat nav with the freecaddie for a comp at our local course, say no more.

I have a HTC Touch Diamond with windows mobile will it work on this?

Been having trouble with my Blackberry Pearl, everytime I try to access it on my phone it keeps telling me this version has expired and to go to the site to upgrade to the new one!!

Go to freecaddie.com but can't get new version so e-mail the support team for advice and below was the reply:

**Hi Wayne,

For now I've decided to discontinue support for the Java and BlackBerry versions of the FreeCaddie. I've found there are just too many platform specific issues regarding permissions, etc. **

Pity he didn't put this on the website, my advice get yourself a proper GPS system and stuff the phone type

Yup - looks pretty poor to me - free usualy is.

its pretty easy to map your course - i played stonebridge thursday and came back and plotted it out well the 1st 9 holes, mainly as the course has changed from a 18 to 27 holes

and they have the old version online, just wish i had a windows based mobile or pda to use it with even looked at buying a new moby to try it out lol 

seems all good, nice to see free stuff

currently scanning for a decent priced HTC touch diamond Smartphone with windows 6.1 and gprs etc etc 3g also

come on ebay give me one cheap like £200 delivered cheap lol