Is it just my Garmin watch that sucks?

millsan1

I've figured this game out! Oh wait, no I haven't
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I have a Garmin G60.

I do like a lot of the features, but one thing that I have noticed lately is yardages can be iffy and the distance it says I hit my shots is off as well.

I'll give an example:

The watch may say I am 145 to the center of the green. I pull out my 7 Iron, hit it clean and pop, right on the middle of the green.

I then travel up to the green, and at the center the watch will indicate i hit it 155.

So something is amiss, either the distance to the green, or the distance reported.

This has happened a lot lately. I am thinking it is the distance reported, but one way or the other it is annoying.

I have had several instance where I was tryign to lay up to a certain number, and because of this 10+_ yard discrepancy, I have had bad results, either way long or way short.

I will remedy this with a range finder at some point, but wondering if others are having the same type problems?
 
My Garmin S6 watch was a complete travesty and an insult to anything ever worn on a wrist. The user interface was so clunky and non-intuitive that I was usually frustrated with it by the 2nd green. Battery sucked, yardages were off all the time etc etc.

Have a G80 now and am quite fond of it. No obvious accuracy issues yet and holds a charge for a long time.
 
I played with my father in law this past May and he had a Garmin watch. I used The Grint app and my app was quite a bit more accurate than his watch. He wasn't pleased to say the least.
 
I have the vivoactive 3 and it seems to be pretty accurate when matched up to GPS on carts. I keep thinking of an upgrade but spending money when trying to save it makes it difficult
 
I have a Garmin Fenix 5. Got it before starting to play golf, but it just so happens to have that ability. It doesn't show much more than how far to the front/middle/back of green, but from what I have seen the numbers have been dead on. I will say that Garmins can be finicky in certain areas, maybe try a firmware reset or reach out to Garmin.
 
DirtyTee;n8876920 said:
I have a Garmin Fenix 5. Got it before starting to play golf, but it just so happens to have that ability. It doesn't show much more than how far to the front/middle/back of green, but from what I have seen the numbers have been dead on. I will say that Garmins can be finicky in certain areas, maybe try a firmware reset or reach out to Garmin.

I would say that this is probably accurate. When I played with my FIL he mentioned that he didn't have the problems at home (in Minnesota) with yardages that he was having when he visited here (in Arizona).
 
Not the watch but I happily played the Garmin G6 for a while. All it took was a few wonky yardages in relation to a playing partner's laser and I lost confidence. Bought a laser in short order.

Still have it, figured I'd use it for when my laser's line of sight was blocked. That's been of such little issue that I haven't used GPS in over a year now.
 
rlefig;n8876909 said:
I have the vivoactive 3 and it seems to be pretty accurate when matched up to GPS on carts. I keep thinking of an upgrade but spending money when trying to save it makes it difficult

I have one of these as well and found it to be pretty good. I still use it as my every day watch, but in the last year on the course, I've used the Shot Scope system. It's also pretty good, depending on the built-in course map. I have seen yardages wildly off once or twice, so I email the company and they have a course update finished usually the next day. It's usually due to course remodels, like the boulder oaks remodel in 2016.

I always carry a laser as well. Center, front and back of the green is great information to have at a glance, but a laser at the pin position usually decides between choking down on the long club to the center and going hard at the lower club to the center.

Whiskey
 
I have an older Garmin watch but haven't had any issues with yardages, and there have been many times when a few of us have had various watches and we have all been within a yard or so when looking at distances
On the few occasions I have played with people who have a rangefinder, they have tagged the pin and I have looked at my watch and never had big differences

I would suggest checking for any firmware / course updates in the first instance
 
In my area I've found pretty much every app, every GPS related item is iffy unless it is cloudless. Also GPS is dependent upon space weather forecasts. If we're getting auroras GPS accuracy will suck more than usual. I use a rangefinder. I've been thinking of picking up a slope rangefinder since I don't play competitive golf.
 
This is year 3 with my G20 and I have had -0- issues other than a finicky charging cord.
Accuracy has been spot on with other GPS products, both cheap and expensive models and brands.
 
I played a tourney the other day and one of my partners had a Garmin watch and it was usually within 4 yards of Arccos all day.
 
I'll update firmware.
 
millsan1;n8876818 said:
I have a Garmin G60.

I do like a lot of the features, but one thing that I have noticed lately is yardages can be iffy and the distance it says I hit my shots is off as well.

I'll give an example:

The watch may say I am 145 to the center of the green. I pull out my 7 Iron, hit it clean and pop, right on the middle of the green.

I then travel up to the green, and at the center the watch will indicate i hit it 155.

So something is amiss, either the distance to the green, or the distance reported.

This has happened a lot lately. I am thinking it is the distance reported, but one way or the other it is annoying.

I have had several instance where I was tryign to lay up to a certain number, and because of this 10+_ yard discrepancy, I have had bad results, either way long or way short.

I will remedy this with a range finder at some point, but wondering if others are having the same type problems?

By chance you Canadian? <<< Question the Garmin customer service guy asked me when I called with what sounds like the same issue :)

I had a similar issue (reading 10+ yards short...longer the distance, worse it got), it turned out I had my settings in the Garmin connect app set to metric (because that's how we role up here in the North) and the Garmin Golf app set to yards. Turns out the watch when in Golf mode, takes the setting from the Garmin Connect app and NOT the Garmin golf app (regardless of what you have the golf app set to). The difference in reading was the difference between a meter and a yard (3.281ft vs 3ft). With that said, the shot tracker in the Golf app, will then translate the shot out into yards, hence why your watch reads 145 yards yet shows you hit it 155.

Once I set my Garmin connect app settings to read Imperial units (not metric), all was fixed. I have the Vio Active 3, it now reads within a yard to what my buddies range finder reads and often is dead on with the course markings.
 
I've gone from a Garmin S4 to an Apple watch 4. The Garmin has been better than anything I've tried for golf. I've tried 5-6 different apps for the new watch, but nothing's as fast or accurate as the Garmin.


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I have a Garmin S6 gathering dust since I got a rangefinder for Christmas a year before last as I was finding distances were getting wacky. I’ve just lost confidence in it so it has sat on shelf for past 2 seasons.
 
firmware update helped, but still a difference. w/e, I will live with it until I get a rangefinder.
 
I played with a guy a few weeks ago with a Garmin watch and he was not happy his readings were often off by 7 plus yards from the readings on my Leupold. I’ve owned a couple GPS units for golf and they were never accurate enough for me. I always wound up shooting the distance with my rangefinder and stopped using them after a few rounds.
 
I have a Garmin G60 and I really like it. If I am just out by myself I use it to judge distances but remember you will get front, middle, and back distances unless you move the pin to the exact location which is hard to do on that little screen. If I really need an accurate distance I will use my laser rangefinder. I haven’t had any issues with my G60 but I will take the laser any day if I need an “exact” distance. I really like the shot tracking, stats, and score keeping capabilities on the G60.


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potbunker;n8877279 said:
This is year 3 with my G20 and I have had -0- issues other than a finicky charging cord.
Accuracy has been spot on with other GPS products, both cheap and expensive models and brands.

I bought the G20 about a month ago and it is spot on. I've compared to the yardages my playing partners see with their laser range finders and I can usually guess within a yard or two depending on pin position. Very pleased with this purchase, no brainer at $109 during Prime Days on Amazon.
 
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