mnfats95

Ashley Arizona PING G400 LST Kuro Kage 60g Silver Stiff 105-107

Ashley Arizona 9 Callaway APEX CF16 v110 KBS tour i500

Ashley - Arizona 41 - 8.4 Callaway Apex CF16 KBS Tour v110 stiff Mack Daddy Wedges

- Ashley - Arizona - TaylorMade RBZ2 with rocketfuel shaft 3 wood - 15 degrees.

Ashley Heaton Arizona Bushnell Tour V3 and GPS app on phone (golfpad)

- Ashley - Arizona - Callaway Apex CF16 with KBS Tour shafts - 165

Tier 1: Justin Rose Tier 2: Patrick Cantlay Tier 3: Zach Johnson Tier 4: Gary Woodland Tier 5: Steve Stricker Winning Score: -6

First name: Ashley Home State/Province/Country: Arizona ​Do you use performance tracking? Yes Do you use a GPS watch? Yes Which ones? SkyCaddie LYNX

1. Ashley Phoenix, AZ 2. PING G400 LST Kuro Kagi, Taylormade RBZ2 3 wood, Titleist 915 3 and 4 hybrids graphite design shafts, Callaway APEX CF 2016 5 through AW, Callaway Mack Daddy III 54 and 58 degree wedges. Evenroll putter. Snell MTB 3. 9.0 4. To get more consistent off of the tee. My current driving game is poor. It's costing me on average 4 strokes a round. I also need to get a better routine involving putting.

- Ashley Arizona - 9 - Snell MTB - High Spin

I just timed the charging of my watch. On a quick charge USB port it charges at about 20% an hour. I haven't timed it on a non quick charge port, but the first time I charged the watch it was on a different port and it seemed like it too overnight to charge it from half.

Just choose Vice or Snell, they don't make clubs, both balls have been proven performers, and they are readily available to anyone with the internet or a phone. If you flip a coin to choose between the two then fate will be the decider and you can direct detractors to speak with fate if they have any issues.

Sent from my Pixel XL using MyGolfSpy mobile app

Reserved Stage 3

LINX GT Watch Game Tracking Edition – Official MGS Forum Review by mnfats95 Player Biography (Skip if read previous review) Playing golf throughout my time in high school seems like a hundred years ago. I vividly remember it as my favorite thing to do during that time of my life. I was only good enough to play the last couple of spots on our six-man team, but it was a blast none the less. I bring up this time period because I want to muse about how much my golf game has changed. When I was playing then the game was new and exciting and I couldn't wait to just be out there doing it. The smell of the fresh cut grass, standing on the first tee with so much hope for the round, and then finally getting under way making my way around the course. This translated into a job at the course and I would work there off and on for a few years even returning from school in the summer to work the course. I would get up at 4:30 am to get out and mow greens so I could make sure and make an early morning tee time. During this time golf yardage was measured from 150 yard markers painted on cart paths and small numbers printed on sprinkler heads. I don't know if my normal step is 1 yard, but for golf I pretended it was. While I was not consistent enough during this time to need exact yardage to the pin I would have loved to have had it. Lasers were around back then, but they were only used in our area to measure sprinklers and other things for course yardage sheets. If people were using them for everyday golf it wasn't around me. The first time I remember seeing a rangefinder it was a huge black device that just fit in your hand and had three numbers on it. Front, Back, and Middle were the yardages and I was in love. I was convinced that having these numbers available to me would finally get me over that hump and down into the 70's for good. Since price was my biggest barrier to entry at the time I waited for them to become somewhat reasonably priced and saved some cash for my first GPS rangefinder. After getting it setup and downloading the courses I regularly played onto it I was set and I never looked back. Playing without this information after that first round would always feel like I was playing naked. Since that time I've had a device to help me figure out how far out I was and while I can't say that it revolutionized my game, there have been very clear moments when it has saved me from playing the wrong club no matter how far I thought the shot looked. My skill has always fluctuated up and down, from shooting in the mid 80's in high school to mid-high 70's later on. After moving from my home state of Kansas to Arizona two years ago, my game has suffered score wise due to more demanding courses off of the tee. Unfortunately, this means I'm back to a 10 handicap up from the 6 I peaked at several years ago. I have never been one to swap equipment out hap hazard. I usually play clubs for 3 to 5 years with the exception of drivers. I wouldn't say that I switch drivers too often, but I rarely keep one for longer than 2 years. Putters tend to stay in my bag for much longer as long as I don't lose confidence with them. Now that I've played down my club swapping, I have replaced my driver, irons, wedges, and putter both within the last year! So, what the hell do I know!!!! I am currently playing a Taylor Made M1 (original) driver with a Taylor Made Rocketballz stage 2 3 wood. My 3 and 4 hybrids are Titleist 915h's which I've had for about 3 years now. I just moved from PING i-25 irons and Gorge wedges to Callaway Apex CF 16 irons and Mack Daddy III Wedges. My putter is a PING Sigma G Kinloch C (that's a mouthful). The driver is probably not going to be in the bag for long. I tried an experiment and it has mostly failed. The thing is a beast as far as distance is concerned. I've never hit a driver longer, or further offline. It is solely responsible for my handicap creeping up lately. I went back and looked at my last 10 rounds. I averaged 4 penalty shots per 18 off the tee with that club. I obviously need something more forgiving and will be searching for that next. Performance For this review, I wanted to accomplish a few things specifically that I would want to know if someone else was reviewing it and I was trying to decide whether or not to purchase the device. · Does the device do what it advertises? · Is the device easy to use? · Does the device help or hurt my game? These are the main things I wanted to determine. Obviously, there are other things to determine and talk about, but those were my focus. Product setup The device arrived with instructions in the box along with a printed off set of streamlined steps to getting everything going. These printed off instructions would not be included with a watch bought at retail, if you go to their website you can find the content from the printed instructions there. The in the box instructions are more detailed than what I would normally expect from a device like this, but they are definitely a manual and don't read as nicely as the printed off content. The tips and FAQ portion of the website is easier to process in my opinion, but the manual would be easy to keep in your golf bag to refer to if needed. I charged the watch first, as that is the first thing listed in the instructions. The proprietary charger was a disappointment, but it works fine. You also should be aware that the watch charges very slow off of a lower power USB connection. Newer phones and other devices require higher power USB plugs to do “fast charging” and it would appear that this watch is the same way. Charging it via the lower power plug took over 7 hours and the higher power one only took a couple of hours from 20%. Setting up the watch was fairly straight forward once you figured out what the buttons do. There are small markings on the watch that are intuitive on button function after you've navigated around the interface a couple of times and there is a nice big picture of the watch and buttons on the first page of the manual. The only annoying issue I haven't figured out is there is a GPS time sync option where I assume the watch will pull the time from the GPS signal. It never worked for me, I have had to set the time manually anytime I went through the setup process. You will also need to go to your respective app store and download the Sky Caddie app in order to complete the next part. Installing the app was just like any other app and of course once you get it installed you will need to login to your Sky Caddie account and pair the watch to your phone via Bluetooth. Once you've installed the app and paired your watch, you have to “tag” your clubs by installing the tags into your grips and then pairing them with the watch, recording which tag is on which club as you go. This worked well for me and also gave me an indication of how long it would take for the watch to read the tags (1 to 2 seconds). Installing the tags was straight forward as you simply screw them into the hole in your grips. They feel sturdy and while at first, I was worried about breaking them, I had no issues getting them in place. Once you have that done you are ready to get out on the course and use the equipment. Pros: · Setup is fairly simple and straight forward · Documentation is very robust · Comes with an extra tag (15 total) · Buttons are fairly intuitive Cons: · If you are not familiar with pairing via Bluetooth you have to learn something else · Couldn't get GPS time sync to work Setup Score: 9/10 Performance on the Course There are two modes of tracking available for this device. You can use “Black Box” mode and “Live” Mode. Black Box mode relies only on the watch and does not require you to use the app while on the course. Live mode allows you to open the app and interact with it during your round. Black Box In this mode, you simply play your game and tag your shots as you go. There is no checking on progress or worrying about past shots. You use the watch as a rangefinder and shot tracking device and leave your phone wherever you normally leave it. You do not have to have a Bluetooth connection to your phone in this mode. Once you are finished with your round you will either connect the watch to your phone and upload your data via the app, or connect the watch to your computer when you get back home and sync it to the Sky Caddie website that way. This was the last mode I tested with the setup, but it ended up being the best way to use it in my opinion. I will give my reasons in the overall review. Live Live mode requires you to pair the watch with your phone and have the app open on your phone and following the round. It also allows you to adjust score and other stats such as fairway's hit, sand shots, chips, etc… It also allows you to change information on shots on the fly. If you turn on the “auto shot” option, the watch will try to determine when you hit a ball but don't tag the shot. It will record it in the round for you. In live mode, you can update these shots while you are playing vs waiting till after the round with black box mode. The interface is pleasing and as long as you have a decent sized phone I don't think editing things on your phone is too much of a hassle. You can also choose not to edit anything and just use it for extra information and over the hole views as needed. You can see by the picture that the picture of the whole is stylized and not real aerial photography as it is with some apps. Watch The watch hardware is a great device. It has all the power of a normal handheld Sky Caddie packed into a device that fits on your wrist. I have no issues wearing a watch while playing so having it there didn't physically bother me at all. It's smaller than I expected and the battery life seems to be adequate. I haven't played 36 with it yet, but when I get home it usually has 50 to 60 percent of its battery left leading me to believe that I could. It gives you yardages to the front, middle, and back of the green along with the normal end of fairway, bunker, water, etc… you've come to expect from a GPS device. The first couple of rounds I used my laser to compare yardages and it was within 2 yards every time. This is close enough for me, I am not consistent enough to need anything better. Tagging clubs usually worked without issue, the only times it would delay and make it a problem is if I hadn't tagged a shot in a while and went to do one. I think the watch goes into some sort of sleep mode to save battery maybe and only looks for the tags every 4 or 5 seconds instead of 1 or 2. This only happened when we were playing slowly or maybe tagging the tee club on hole 10 after taking a short break between the front and back. It takes several minutes to find the course you are playing on so start the process early before you get to the first tee. It's comfortable to wear and I didn't really notice it was there unless I was using it. App The app you use on the course seems to be where this product starts to suffer. It's structured well and not hard to navigate, but it has some very glaring issues. I am using it on a Pixel XL phone for reference. I have had two occasions during my testing where out of nowhere the app would not recognize the watch even though it was paired with my phone. Restarting the watch and phone would not solve this issue. Reinstalling the app did nothing as well, both times I had to reset the watch completely which wipes the setup in order for it to be seen again. I guess you could argue it might be the watch, but during this process I had two different watches that it happened to. When using the app on the course I had nothing but issues. At first, I thought they might be just me not understanding what I was supposed to be doing. After re-reading instructions and looking through FAQ's I feel like I was using it correctly for the most part. The app would simply freeze about every other time I would go to use it, sometimes taking five seconds to recover and other times taking over 20 seconds. It suddenly became something that was interrupting my game vs becoming a part of it. It was very frustrating at first as I thought maybe I wasn't supposed to be adjusting things during the round. Once I realized if I waited a few seconds or more it would come out of it I was able to do what I wanted to, I just had to wait. I was offered the choice of joining their app beta program to see if my issues would be less with a newer un-released version of the app, but even though it was better, it wasn't what I would call acceptable. I need the app to open and allow me to interact with it in a matter of a second or two, not 5 to 20. After trying the beta app I tried to sync my round after playing with it the first time and while it uploaded it, none of the data was available on the site after the upload. They determined that this was a back-end issue only affecting the beta app and corrected it. After a few other quirks and sending all of us replacement watches with “updated software”, they asked that I move back to the production app so I did. The new watch didn't really do much for me, but somewhere in this process another issue showed up. I had one round where it actually worked great. I mean I thought that they had gone and taken care of the issues. Unfortunately that was the only “great” experience I would have using both the watch and app. The following rounds were even more spotty than the initial ones when it came to picking shots I forgot to tag, tagging shots I didn't actually take, and being ready to go when I unlocked my phone. Overall Performance The last few rounds I played with the device I used the watch in black box mode and didn't use the app. The first couple worked great and I just had to spend a little time cleaning up the round on the website and adjusting the score since it doesn't keep track of putts. Then I had more issues when uploading the rounds, it would only show the front nine online. I think I even had one that showed the round with no data at all. At this point I didn't feel like trying to figure out why it was happening. Once I felt like things weren't going to get any better I stopped tracking my shots all together and just used the watch for yardages. At this point I will come back to it so I can complete my stage 3 follow up, but I'm hoping they have some updates between now and then. I will continue to use the watch for yardages as it's great at that, but shot tracking needs a lot of work. While the setup worked once or twice as I expected, the rest of the time it was tedious and unreliable to the point that it really affected my scores. I was worrying more about the watch and shot tracking than the golf and I'm pretty sure that's not going to equal a lower score. I like the convenience of having all of this on my wrist, but it also needs work consistently. Without worrying about it I have already seen an improvement in my scores and enjoyment of my rounds. Course Score: 20/40 Performance Notes Pros: · Accurate yardages conveniently located on your wrist · Size is very reasonable and is comfortable to wear · Tracks non-tagged shots reasonably well · Has all the stats I would care about seeing tracked · Allows you to upload rounds through the app or computer · Battery life on the watch should allow 36 holes · Using watch for GPS with phone saves phone battery compared to other GPS apps · Sky Caddie's course maps are spot on Cons: · Usage of the device with the app is a total crapshoot · Missing information that you know it recorded when scores are uploaded · Connection between watch and app has major issues from time to time · Becomes a burden during the round when it malfunctions · Multiple updates and changes failed to resolve some issues and introduced new ones · Watch takes a long time to find the closest course Post Round Editing Once you've finished your round you can upload the information via the app or the Sky Caddie website via computer. When the data is up there you can go in and edit any aspect of your round. You can also do this via an extra app you download, but I didn't use this to edit my rounds, just view my prior information. When the data made it up there it was fairly straight forward to edit your round. You could use a scorecard mode and edit the score and stats of your round directly, or you could use a hole view just like you see in the app to change shot tagging or remove shots you didn't actually take that it might have picked up on accident. The website is really good. I mean they have everything up there. The statistics and reports available are very robust. They have all the standard things like handicap, fairways hit, greens hit, etc… They also have club distances and average scores on different holes. All of this information is outstanding and would be amazing insight into your game if they could get the entry part to work right. The only thing I can really nitpick is that it takes a few seconds for each hole view to load when you are editing your shots and while that's no big deal, going through 18 holes with that delay gets annoying. First world problems! It's only as good as the data being fed into it, and while the charts and graphs are amazing, if you are only able to get some of the data into the system then they really aren't worth much. I am going to rate this part high because it really is done very well. It's not the web developer's fault that getting the information into the site is a challenge. Pros: · Clean website that looks and navigates well · Editing is very similar to the app so you don't have to learn again · Reports and statistics are very robust · Everything is out in front of you, didn't have to hunt for things · Time spent editing wasn't unreasonable. Cons: · Hole view takes a few seconds to render making 18-hole edits take longer · Have to load another app to see stats after round is entered Editing Score: 15/15 Subjective Looks The watch is the best part of this pair as I've already stated. The looks and feel of the watch are great! I do not design watches, but as far as I can tell I wouldn't change anything. The screen is an LCD in greyscale and it works great outside. No annoying glare from the sun and no struggling to read the display. I feel like the text on the screen is a good size and anytime I was going through the menus I was able to determine what things were. It's comfortable to wear and since it's a sport watch it's pretty much all rubber which is what I would prefer so I can simply rinse it off when needed. It's not going to win you any style contests and while it can also function as an odometer and tell the time I don't think I'll be wearing it for anything other than golf. It looks good on the wrist though and is about the perfect size when combining functionality and aesthetics. I am only taking away one point because I don't think anyone would make this a daily wear watch. Looks Score: 14/15 Likelihood of Purchase Short and sweet, I would not purchase this product in its current state. The watch half of this equation is damn near perfect. For traditional GPS functionality, it is almost flawless. But there is only a $50 difference between the tracking version with tags and the watch/app only version. After doing some looking, there are options that are much more reasonable for the GPS only functionality and even though you get the app, the only thing I believe that gives you over other combinations of watch and app is the battery saving on your phone using the watch gets you. That doesn't even take into account that Sky Caddie has a fee for membership to their courses that really isn't optional. I will continue to use the watch and follow updates to the app and software, but unless they can get the product to reliably perform on the tracking/app side I don't think this product is worth the cost and hassle. LOP Score: 5/20 Questions & Answers. Some questions that were asked and may have been answered but if not here you go. 1. My question is one that would be a make or break for me, how does it feel on the wrist and more importantly how does it interact with your glove? I don't notice it at all. I wear a watch almost daily though so your mileage may vary. I also haven't had any issues with my glove or my wrist hitting any buttons as they are pretty stiff to press. 2. I have had no luck syncing and getting stats or even a scorecard to edit. None of the shots have logged for me through 2 rounds. My first round was 18 holes starting on #10. It gave me a 9 hole blank scorecard to edit and no locations of shots. Second round was same thing. I'd edit the scorecard, get to #6 and it would wipe out holes 1-5... Troubleshooting thoughts? These are similar issues to what I've seen. No fix that I'm aware of. It came and went for me as to when it would happen or when it would work correctly. 3. How does it handle punch shots? I'm in the trees sometimes and have punch out so a 4 iron may only go 110 yards. Does this get factored in? I believe you would need to remove these if you didn't want them factored into your average. I'm not sure if it would be able to tell after a while what your normal distance with a club is and not factor in obvious deviations. 4. Choke down/half shots/green side bunker shots - these go shorter distances. How do they factor in? Do you just delete them? You could delete this, but there is a chip check box that comes up automatically on greenside shots for me. I would assume that if this box gets filed it doesn't use it to calculate your full club average, but I have no way of confirming this. 5. Will it track average distance from the hole? This is an exciting thought for me if it does. I read that the difference between a Web.com and Pga Tour player is that the PGA guys hit it 2 ft closer to the pin on average. Since it doesn't know where the hole is no. It does show you where you tagged your first putt on each hole though. 6. I'm really excited to hear more about these, I've been on the fence about game golf and arccos for awhile now....I don't like the "tagging" part of Game Golf and with Arccos you have to keep your phone on your person with the newest version to register shots and the older version requires your phone to be with you fit accurate GPS. Does the watch have built in GPS or is it using the GPS of your phone like arccos? Tagging can be a burden. I never got to the point it was second nature, but I did get better at it. The Auto shot feature works about 90% of the time for me so it wasn't as bad as it could have been but I had to fill in clubs during or after the round. 7. Does the app show your path from tee to green visually? If you guys get into some adventurous holes, please share those photos for a good laugh. It draws straight lines from shot to shot, so it wouldn't show if you had a fade or draw, but it will show where you hit from and where you ended up. Conclusion If this product worked as advertised it would be a no brainer. When it operates correctly it gives you things most golfer would love to have. Data about your game can lead to tendencies and allow you to analyze things only the pros can take advantage of today. I really want this product to work as this type of information would be a huge help to telling me where I'm good and what I should be working on. There are probably better watches out there, there might even be similar apps, but the combination this duo would give you would be class leading in my opinion. I have had two other Sky Caddies in the past and I know they make a quality product. You also have to pay for it, but I don't mind that as long as it works. Unfortunately, in this case I can't even pretend that it was acceptable. As a disclaimer, I want you the reader to know that we were all working with Sky Caddie during these reviews to try and get the best performance out of these as possible. They tried with various things to help including sending us all watches with updated software. Through all of that even though some of the initial things were remedied, new arguably even worse issues appeared. I personally don't feel like we received anything extra that would sway our opinions about the product. I just wanted to be as open and honest as possible. I remain hopeful that the software side of the equation will improve and the device will start to work as advertised. I will continue to try it over the next 10 or 15 rounds and report back. Total Score: 63/100