Garmin S60 Golf Watch and Garmin Golf App

[ACalling]

Intro:

Hello everyone, this will be my first unofficial review to put on the forum so wanted to start off with a little background information about myself to give some context. I am a WFH Sales guy by day and love getting out to the course as much as possible when the weather permits it in CT. I was always a decent golfer, I started playing much younger in my life, around 9-10yrs old (I am 28 now). Any progress in my game from the start was just all on-course, no lessons, no real practice or thoughts about how to lower scores. I would say that when I was in college was when that started to turn around. My competitive basketball career was coming to a close and I had a summer job working at the course closest to my parents place in NC, so I was playing A LOT of golf. And for the first time playing with golfers who took it much more serious than me. That really got my competitiveness going. I don't mind losing, and especially to better golfers than me....but I also don't like losing all. the. time....I needed to get better. Then a couple years later when the pandemic started I went back down to NC to wait out the "2-week" lockdown (remember when we thought that?). I was still able to get out on that same course for free and was back to playing A LOT of golf again, as there really wasn't much else to do. Those 3 months ended up being the big leap in my game where I went from probably a 18ish hcp a few years ago to around a 12-13. It is also where I started to analyze my game as a way to improve...enter the Garmin S60 Golf Watch and the Garmin Golf App.

 

The Watch:

At the time, I was in between wanting to spend the money on a rangefinder, or spend the couple extra dollars and get a watch. I figured it would be a long term enough investment, so I went for the watch and it was at the time their top-of-the-line watch. It took me a little bit to get used to wearing something on my wrist while playing. This is probably the number one feedback item I get when trying to recommend it to other people, so if that's you too, just know its not a long adjustment period. I am at the point now where if I forgot to charge my watch or left it at home I will instinctually be checking my wrist throughout the round even when its not on. Let me break down some more features and what I like and dislike about the watch.

Looks: To me, I think this watch looks great (pictures below). Good enough to wear outside the course, and has enough smartphone connective features that you may want to do just that. The size of it works for me, the screen and bezel feel just right, though it is a tad thicker than say, an Apple Watch. 

Battery: The manufacturer says that you get 10hours in Golf GPS Mode, (10%/hour) and up to 10 days in watch-mode. I have found my experience to be right around that. Granted, my watch is a few years old now and my 9 holes last night took the battery from just under 100% to around 72% by the time I got back home. I will note that at the very low end of the battery it gets less accurate. Annoying "low battery" messages with strong vibrations start kicking in around 15% battery, and then it turns to "Battery Critical" messages, and it may shut off on you before you would have expected it to. So to say 9 holes can take you from 100-80 percent, but you might find that it at 20% wouldn't get you through it. 

Features: This thing has got it all. The obvious ones, distances to the front/middle/back of the green, with an overhead image of the hole is the standard screen you'll be looking at during the round. Tapping on the screen then will give you adjusted yardage with symbols to represent either incline/flat/decline. You can touch the picture of the whole and it will take you to a different screen when you can tap anywhere and it'll give you the distance to that (think dogleg/hazard). There is a physical button on the side you can press that will take you into its golf specific menu. Some of these features will be yardages to the 200/150/100 markers, your score so far, but mostly these are extensions of what the main screen is already doing. The other big benefit is that it has automated shot tracking. So after you hit the ball, it'll ask you what club you hit (this can be automated if you have the Garmin C10 tracking system similar to Arccos), and a little number will then be on the top of the screen tracking distance from each shot to the next. At the end of the whole it'll automatically pop up a new screen when you enter your score, fairways either hit middle or miss left/right, number of putts, and if you had any penalty strokes. These can all be changed in the golf menu during your round. One thing to note is that if you have any turf interaction on a practice swing, that shot tracking menu will most likely pop up, you can easily exit with the back button but it can be annoying if you want to just quickly check the yardage again. 

Performance: I have had no issues with this at all. The distances are super accurate, and the plays-like distances are as well. If it says play 10 more yards, do it! When I'm playing with people who are rangefinder guys, they don't even take it out anymore. I get a lot of "what's the watch say?" when I'm playing now. It has helped me be able to play a lot faster and especially on newer courses since you can see the shape of the whole. No more, "which ways the green?" or "shoot I didn't know there was a bunker there!" 

 

 

The App:

The nice thing about having the watch is that it gives you access to the companion app, and its free! This is where if you want data, you can find it. I track my handicap through it, You can look at all your scorecards, your strokes gained, club performance etc. I find the app very easy to use and if you have questions about your game it generally has the info to find your answer. I'll post some screenshots...as long as we remember this is a review of the app itself and not of my stats. 

Performance Stats:

Shot Overview:

Scorecard and Hole Overview:

 

These screens I feel kind of explain themselves. I am not enough of a Strokes Gained or HCP calculator to know if these are accurate or not, but I tend to feel that they are. As I mentioned there is another screen that goes through your whole bag and shows you the average distance for each. I am not sure if this data is skewed a bit by outliers or if it eliminates those. Think of scenarios like punch-outs with a 7-iron that goes 75 yards, or a drive gets knocked down by a tree branch. I think either way once you play enough that the data works itself out. Looking at mine I think its a fairly accurate representation of how I hit it. It has definitely helped me out with getting rid of the "I can get there with a...." shots. 

Closing Thoughts: 

If you've stuck around this long, thanks for reading! I hope you have enjoyed the review. Did I write this whole thing because I thought you all would be super interested and find it insightful? Or because the Admins say it increases the chances of getting selected for future tests? I guess we'll never know. (probably more for the testing thing, I mean hey, this whole site is about transparency, right??) This is definitely positive one as I really like this watch. The current offering is the S62, which is kind of a half-step up from the S60. If you are thinking about purchasing one, you can find good deals on the "old" S60 a lot of places. There are cheaper offering as well and their website does a great job breaking down what features are included in each model. The watch has customizable watch faces, and the ability to track other types of exercises. One time, the charging cable broke, and even though it was past warranty their customer service sent out a new one for free. Nothing is ever perfect, and can always be improved, but for what these are I think they've been excellent. 

Scores:

Watch-9/10

App-9/10

 

[elight]

Thank you for this. I recently bought a used S60 because I was tired of having my phone in my pocket while I play. I find I don't mind wearing the watch at all.

My one gripe is that the hole views are not nearly as detailed as the satellite view on a phone app, and it's hard to find distances by touching on the hole map because there's no intermediate zoom - you're either fully zoomed out or you're zoomed into the green. 

But it's worth it for the stat tracking and shot tracking. I'm not willing to pay for the CT10 integration, and don't mind selecting the club.