Well what a difference knowing the exact distances can make to the game. The yardages on the course were out; ranging from 3 or 4 yards to a worrying 9 yards!

I shot a 79, my first sub 80 round of the season. It included 8 pars and a birdie on the 2nd. I was -1 after 3 holes! Golfshake now has my handicap as 13.5.

Looking forward to playing again on Wednesday. Oh and I found out our club Pro is trying to qualify for the British Open on Wednesday. Will report back when I know how he got on.

Lastly why wont my Golf Insurance cover my SkyCaddie??  Rang them and computer said no!

Probably the same reason they don't cover items such as Phones or MP3 players. They don't see them as purely Golf Equipment and also view them as high risk items for thefts.

I've had a similar problem trying to get my Explanar insured. Golf Insurers don't class this as a piece of Golf Equipment.

Back onto the subject of GPS in the last week I've now started offering from my shop the Golflogix GPS device powered by Garmin technology and also the Shotmiser GPS devices. Both devices retail for around the £200 mark with very good options and pricing for the course downloads. We still do the Skycaddies but have started having people enquire about the other devices, probably due to fact the Skycaddies have such expensive membership plans which have to be kept current to keep the device useful.

I have one of the Snooper SatNavs, they come with free golf GPS.

As well as being a SatNav for the car, it has all the speed cameras on it.

Then the golf courses are there.

There is no subscription fee and you can download as many courses as you want.

Russ

i have finally got my caddyaid to work on my PDA, will let you know how it goes.

Russ how do you find your snooper for Golf usage, any good???

used my caddyaid on my phone today and while i played crap the device is fantastic, all the info you could want and only £33

We are selling these by the bucket load at the minute. We have tried stocking a few but the SureShot and SkyCaddie are most popular. Feedback is very positive, and I have to echo Chris' sentiments, it is amazing how far out markers can be on the course.

I think SkyCaddie are ridiculous for charging 30quid subscription, after forking out a few hundred quid on the console, you should get the first year free atleast. Although in their defence they are the best.

Skycaddie are the first to get the full approval of the PGA and EGU so they have that advertising advantage. Also they were one of the first out so have a good market share. However their prices of the units have gone up which in this recession and credit crunch makes no sense. The SG5 now costs £329 and the SG2.5 can be up to £229 I have seen. I admit we still sell them at £190 but there is no profit margin there for us and its almost a waste of time us selling them.

 Also I was approached by members asking for info on the other devices we now sell. The Shotmiser/Snooper device was the 1st alternative to the Skycaddie and for the price of £249 you are getting a Golf GPS and Car Sat Nav / Camera Detector so pretty good bit of kit. Also the Shotmiser has a graphical display like a yardage planner so you can see the overview of the hole your playing. It also has a good scorecard and stat tracking system built it. A Great piece of kit I'd buy today if I didn't have a Skycaddie. No annual subscription on these is also appealing to the Golfers who don't play loads of courses and need to constantly be uploading and downloading. They just pay to download the courses they want when they want them.

I tried out our demo Golflogix GPS on Tuesday and found it to be a very simple and straight forward GPS that at £209 is a good rival for the Skycaddie. Powered by Garmin GPS Technology is seemed very accurate and reliable. Fast operation and aqquring of Sat signal and updating of yardages. Very big easy to read screen which I know is favoured by some people, which forces them to buy a Skycaddie SG5 over a 2.5 because they can't read the smaller Skycaddie's screen. I like how the Golflogix runs on 2 standard AA size batteries and they give you 4 rechargable ones with a charger with the device. So you never have to worry about running out of power. If you travel to play golf its great as you don't have to remember to charge the device up between rounds. Just pop in a fresh set of batteries. There subscription is reasonable at £20 a year for unlimited course downloads anywhere in the world. The Skycaddie equivlant is £40 I do believe.

Wayne, it's good for me!

I'm very happy with the Snooper.

They have a website with a list of golf clubs that are already on the system, and you can contact them to request a course to be mapped.

The Snooper gives me all the normal information, back, middle and front of green.  It also gives distances to bunkers, ponds and ditches.

The only drawback for me is that the battery only lasts for one round!  You cannot change the battery so if you played 36 holes in one day you'd have to try and recharge the unit before you went back out.

Russ

Nick Thomson  have you tried the caddyaid?

No, I haven't looked at it.

To be fair we don't get asked for too much else. We did the GolfLogix, and I thought it was quite nice, but looked abit too plain, that seemed to put alot of people off.

Also it's amazing how people will play nearly double the money for a colour screen, just because it is coloured!!(obviously as Chris pointed out, some people need the bigger screen to be fair)

Another interesting point, SkyCaddie's are all software based, so as you renew they will always update themselves, so no need to but another "better" console.

Hi Nick, not quite sure I follow the last paragraph with me being a software developer.  Surely it's the other way round - software updates but hardware remains ?

Yes, thats what I said.

The new updates should go onto your existing console. But SkyCaddie will bring out new consoles, the only difference will be the way it looks, so need to buy another console. Unless they change the software side drastically.

HTH.

Got ya, that was my view.