goaliewales14

That's so weird that yours is that dim with the maxed out. If it keeps being dull, would you be able to factory reset it just to see if some random feature was turned on?

So glad I'm not losing my mind on that issue!

I did have weather issues during my last round. It was registering 0 mph winds at times, but I had at least 10-15 mph while I was playing

I just went to go grab my glove and this is what it looks like if I take my time both putting on the watch and the glove. The glove gets extremely close to the power off button. (I do take my glove off after each shot) You can also see that there's not much room left for me to adjust the watch to make it any looser to allow me to slide up much more. I'm wearing the watch just left (on my left hand) of my wrist bone, so where you'd typically wear a watch.

I did a few practice swings on my non glove hand and because I try to have a bit of Dustin Johnson hands at the top, it does interfere with my swing. I didn't see any ability to flip the screen on the S70. I went through all the settings and did wear it to see if it auto flipped, but it didn't. Maybe some of the fellow testers could see if I missed anything on this feature! The one suggestion that I'm gonna try is what @Shrek74 does is just push it up a bit.

Honestly I was really nervous about that, but no I haven't. I have tested it out hitting different types of shots to see if I would get uncomfortable and it's been great from that standpoint. I believe what is causing it to try and shut off is the velcro strap is pushing the part of the glove that I can't tuck under the watch into the buttons. That would be the only "pinching" that I have issues with right now.

I was able to get out and play another round today with the S70. It was kind of a bag of mixed emotions in terms of feedback. The biggest issue for me today continues to be how my glove fits. I'm guessing I need to wear this up a few inches rather than my wrist. You can see in the picture below the glove just doesn't fit. The biggest problem is during my swing it kept buzzing because one of the buttons was getting pressed to ask if I want to shut it off. This led to some very terrible shots due to losing concentration mid swing. The other issue is the "play as" distance was off probably about a full club today. It wasn't picking up the wind gusts. I wanted to take the "play as" number just to test as it was very accurate the first time and I was playing the same course. The good news is that I definitely was able to do the yardage to a specific point a lot easier today. Just took a bit of practice. The main trick is that if you press anywhere on the hole layout, it automatically takes you to the green. There is a slider on the right side of the watch face to zoom in and out. If you zoom out then drag to a specific area you want to know the yardage, you're able to select it that way. Next time The really big bright spot in the round was on hole 11. I had 110 to the pin and here's the approach view of the hole and where the shot ended up....yes that pitch mark is from my shot

Did your yardages have triangles next to them? If so, you just have to tap them it should go back to the actual yardages.

@revkev - Wanted to test this out for you today. It seems like while the "play golf" feature is active, all notifications are turned off. I had a few people text me randomly during my round today and the only notification was on my phone itself. Nothing actually came through the watch while I was playing, but it will come through when I'm not playing. After playing 2 rounds and having it on for close to 8-10 hours, I'm running at about 76%. The watch does seem to have a pretty good battery life. Hope that helps!

I was able to get out and play my first round with the watch yesterday! While I was out there I was using my rangefinder, Garmin, and GHIN for the hole overview to compare everything. Initial thoughts are: The watch is very light weight and it's hard to notice that you're wearing it Screen is very easy to read Step counter did not seem calibrated correctly Taking on and off my glove was an issue The "Plays like" feature saved me! Need to work with hole view feature. Had issues working it

I'm getting in my first round tomorrow with my Garmin!

I could be wrong as I haven't gotten fully into it, but I believe you'd need to get the Approach CT10 to put into your grips like Arccos for all of that to work the best.

Introduction Hello fellow spies! I want to thank MGS and Garmin for this amazing testing opportunity! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mike, or Goaliewales14. I live in Indiana with my amazing wife of almost 11 years. I have been playing golf for about 9 years now. Over those years, I have had some of the best experiences including review things such as the Spornia SPG8 XL hitting net and Martin Chuck’s Tour Striker Academy. This is the first year where I’m actively getting into tournaments while even becoming a member of a course for the very first time. I even won my first ever scramble and the very next day placed T-10 at a brand new event! This has really forced me to step up my game which leads me to the Garmin Approach S70. Testing I have always been curious about the Garmin watches, but never pulled the trigger on one to try it out. I currently use an array of different distance measuring devices that include, Bushnell V6 Shift, Arccos, and the GHIN app. Most of the time I just stick to my rangefinder as I’ve played most of the courses around here, but if it’s a new course, that’s when I break out GPS. I want to get a clear picture of the hole in my mind before teeing off and also make sure I know what my carry distances I need to be clear of trouble. For my review, I’ll start out on my home course to test the yardages and functionality. I’ll be comparing the yardages to all of the other devices to ensure accuracy. To me distance accuracy will be the #1 most important feature. After that, I want to make sure wearing a watch doesn’t cause a problem. I’ve never worn anything on my wrist, so I don’t know how that will feel. While we’re completing this review, please make sure to check out the review that MGS already did! MGS Garmin Approach S70 Review First Impressions (9 out of 10) After reading the MGS article and doing a little homework online, I was nothing but excited to received the S70. The list of features on this watch goes on for days! When selecting which watch I wanted to review, there was only one choice for me, black 47mm. You can see from the picture above that there were three color choices, black, gray, and white. The other two options are only available in 42mm. Upon unboxing, the watch was perfect. The black and red was a perfect and the fit was good. The watch is very light weight compared to my Samsung Galaxy watch. Getting the watch setup took multiple tries as the watch and app kept not being in sync. After two to three tries I was able to get it set up and working. The watch has a ton of customizable features that lead to hours of fun playing around. Aesthetics (7 out of 10) As I mentioned above, the fit was good, but what I ran into was my glove kept hitting buttons. There were a few times during my swing where the watch vibrated in my backswing because my glove pushed the power off button. That to me is a huge downside for a watch that’s supposed to be a golf watch. The huge upside to the Approach S70 is the amount of customization you can do with the watch face. You can take any picture and make it a background while adding in different features such as battery life, steps, and calendar date. The Numbers (15 out of 20) The most important feature on a GPS watch are the yardages. The non adjusted yardages were very accurate when compared to GHIN, Arccos, and confirmed with a Bushnell Shift V6 rangefinder. I actually loved having the front/middle/back numbers on all of the holes. This allowed me to know exactly what number I needed to get to the green. When I’m having a rough round, I just want to hit the middle of the green rather than actually try to hit the proper tier. I did find myself using the rangefinder along with the S70 to confirm the pin position. The yardages that were hit or miss were the “plays as” yardages. The S70 is supposed to factor in weather and other factors to give you an adjusted yardage. There were a few times it was spot on, but others when it wouldn’t register or completely off making you a full club long or short at best. On-Course (15 out of 20) Being that this was the first time that I’ve ever worn a watching while playing golf, I knew there would be an adjustment period. The first thing I wanted to check was does it affect my swing? The answer was yes and no. The watch didn’t hinder my swing at all, but as I mentioned earlier, my glove did hit the power button causing it to vibrate during my swing. The new routine that I adopted with the S70 that made me better was to shoot the pin with my rangefinder on all of my approach shots and then check the S70 to see where it’s located on the green. This allowed me to make a more informed decision on where the safe miss was for the shot. If I only had a few yards to the back of the green, then I would just go for the middle number and club up to allow for it to release back to the pin. The routine that I kept trying to adopt was getting carry yardage over a fairway bunker or to have certain distance into a pin. While the S70 can do this, the functionality seemed a bit labored especially compared to other apps out there on your phone. Whenever you trying to get a number, you had to zoom in and out to find the spot you wanted and if you drug your finger on the screen, the cursor read a bit ahead of where you’re actually pointing. The Good, the bad, the in-between (10 out of 20) For this section I’m going to focus on the “lifestyle” side of the S70. For me the whole point of a smart watch is to not look at your phone. With the S70, I felt like I was able to view things like text messages, but if I wanted to reply, I had to get out my phone. With my first-generation Galaxy watch, I can reply directly on the watch. That’s a watch that is five years older than the S70 and was half the price. The other thing I noticed was that the calibration of the step count and heart rate were always above that of my Galaxy watch. For example, when walking from my car in the parking lot to the clubhouse, which is approximately 400 feet at max, it recorded close to 1000 steps. The average stride is around 2 – 2.5 feet. That would make it 200 steps at maximum. I did record my height and all other factors into the app correctly before allowing the step counter to activate. Play it or Trade it? (10 out of 20) With everything considered, the S70 will not replace my Galaxy watch in my normal day-to-day. With the interference with my golf glove, I will not be wearing the watch on the golf course. However, what I did find out I like is making it a fancy version of the Bushnell Wingman. I have wrapped it around my Bluetooth speaker that I use on the golf course and check my yardages for my approach shots, or if I need to lay up. Conclusion Overall, is the S70 worth the $700 price tag? My thoughts are no. If it were up to me to go out and buy this after this review, I wouldn’t do it. I’d rather have my Galaxy or Apple watch and just use one of the GPS apps that are out there in the stores. At the end of the day, it won’t replace my rangefinder either. Final Score (66 out of 100)

Congrats testers!!!

@Vegan_Golfer_PNW @AndySP What are your thoughts on the price and the lack of customization compared to other driving irons/hybrids on the market. Would you want to see more options or do you think the standard recoil shaft is a great fit?

I forgot you had the ExPutt! You should be able to get amazing data points from that!

Loved reading through this review! Of course everyone talks about the stability of this shoe. I'm curious if any of the testers have ever had the Under Armour spikes. I've always considered those the absolute most stable and the best traction on the market. I was curious how the Sqairz compare in terms of stability and traction to those.

Great write-ups! The Evnroll test is always one that I look forward too! I would definitely say that Evnroll probably has the best face technology on the market. Just curious are any of you going to try and replicate the Most Wanted testing to compare your results from 5, 10, and 20 feet.

Congrats to all the testers!! @Q22Golf glad you were able to get into a test!! You're definitely going to have to show me this bag in person!

Cut line -1 Highest Round: 85

Make sure to tell Martin Chuck hi for me (Mike Wales)!! Doing the Tour Striker Academy review seriously changed everything for me! Such an amazing teacher!

@CFreddie - I heard you were looking for a challenger! Being that we're close in the same handicap, I'd thought I would have a date night with the wife while get into this Cobra Challenge! There's a course near us called Birdies that has 36 holes and is a lot of fun! Unfortunately I was lacking in the photo department (amateur move I know), but I was able to capture this gem of my wife's ball getting stuck under one of the bridges. We played both sides and turned in 2 rounds of even par! Great year so far with this everyone! Keep it up!!

If this is still available, I'd like to purchase it!

Congrats everyone!! I feel like the side competition should be how many miles each tester walks throughout this review