In your golf bag, a diverse array of tools and gadgets can be essential for improving your handicap and gaining a competitive advantage on the course. At whichgolfcourse, we believe there are two specific pieces of equipment that can significantly enhance your overall approach and deserve a place as the top two game-changing additions to your bag.
1. Golf Yardage Book
Yes, this is a very basic bit of kit but your yardage book is the number 1 piece of kit that will be your greatest tool in your bag, Understanding exactly how far you can hit the ball is vital as you negotiate the golf course.
How to get an accurate set of yardage readings you may ask?
Well the basic answer is to travel down to your local driving range and basically measure these by eye.
Measuring your Irons
1. Swing x 4 (full, 3/4 Medium and soft) with 3 decent swings where the connection is true and the connection is pure
2. Create the average across those 4 scores
Especially for high handicappers its good to understand the full range of your swing speed / strength to give you more focus and accuracy.
For instance you are probably more accurate swinging a club at 50% power than 100%, so with your book in hand you may have the option of 3 club choices based around the lie and also the power needed.
It may be that your ball is under a tree and you can’t do a full swing with a 9 iron to shirt your ball 120 yards but with a soft and low 7 iron you can make it.
It’s all about giving you options and showing the varied degrees of power verses distance across your clubs. As a beginner we would suggest that you never need to swing at 100% as there is a much higher chance of waywood shots to occur.
For lower handicappers it may be that you only want to do 2 out of the 4 swing speeds to get your book started. We would suggest that you update your yardage every year to ensure that these are still accurate.
Even the Pro’s such as Lee Westwood has his irons marked in a sharpie with his yardage so he easily sees his distances.
2. Golf Smart Watch
In our humble opinion a golf smart watch is better than a range finder but each to their own, some golfers don’t like to wear anything on their wrists but if you can then definitely invest in a smart watch.
Coupled with your yardage book you now have a full caddie at your disposal to really gain the advantage around the course, there are a plethora of watches on the market and to be honest you don’t need to buy the very latest to still get the right tech.
What’s the standard criteria?
1. Yardage calculator (yup we are stating the obvious)
2. UK golf courses pre installed (some watches you can add courses to but this does depend on how easy you want it)
3. Healthy battery life (most come with 2 to 3 days battery life but this does drain if you are connecting to GPS but all will comfortably last a full day)
4. Optional golf club shaft sensors ( Some watches come with screw in sensors and will track your distances over time and can suggest the best club choices for you for the next swing. These watches do take more time to learn your club distances but after a few rounds they start to learn your distances).
5. Colour screen (Not a deal breaker but it is a nice to have)
6. Hazard information (Some will show you water and bunker hazards so you can know what to avoid).
7. Score card (this should be standard)
Most of these watches will offer an app so you can download or store your data, some are good and some are bad as the watches tend to be the focus so do your research as this does make the difference if you are going to track and save your score to review and look back at any given time.
So there you have it, a basic book and a high tech wearable caddie, a great mix of both old and new school to last you your lifetime playing golf.
