I have found the sky caddy to be fairly accurate, certainly accurate enough for my game. I have a Bushnell laser range finder as well, and have compared measurements, and found them to be usually within a yard of each other. Such as distances the traps, and other things I could measure with a laser that were part of this Guy Candy database for the course. I use a sky caddy for most measurements; front, middle and back of the green yardages are real helpful.

The laser unit is used to get those yardages less than 150 yards. I am unable to hold the unit steady enough to work effectively and quickly for yardages over 150.

So the up shot is, I use them both. Even at the most familiar tracks. I guess I could live without the laser, but the sky caddy, I can't do without.

Great review, first of all. I have been debating between laser and GPS for about a year now and have never pulled the trigger, so this is all great information for me.

Great points on being able to use the laser on the range; that would be very helpful at my range.

For those who have the Garmin, can you use it as a regular GPS device driving around as well? If not, is there a product like this with the dual functionality?

It is specific to golf and I haven't heard of one that would do both.

Great points on being able to use the laser on the range; that would be very helpful at my range.

For those who have the Garmin, can you use it as a regular GPS device driving around as well? If not, is there a product like this with the dual functionality?

I'm going to disagree with JP a little bit. I'm an 18 hcp right now and the gps/rangefinder is extremely helpful at my level. I'm not always in the fairway or just off of it, so yardages can be hard to calculate, even when playing a fairly open course where being 1 fairway over isn't that much of a penalty!

My gps battery was dead a couple of weeks ago (I didn't realize it until I got to the course), and it threw me off for a couple of holes. I'd forgotten where the yardage markers were on a course that I've played every week for 2 years.

Check out the golflogix out if you live in a place that doesn't have courses listed in Golf Digest.

According to their web site, they already work with Mac OS X (I can't remember if it was in their Product or Support FAQ). Check the availability of your courses in their course finder. A lot of mine are coming in June.

Thanks yes, I contacted them and the sales person wrote back to say OS X is already supported. Now I am trying to determine which courses my area have maps ready to use. I gave them a list of the 25 courses we play regularly. We tend to play 50 times a year. I just play the Tampa courses. Need to play elsewhere in the country though.

I have a skycaddie, and although I was delighted with it at first, it was more a gadget thing than something that I felt really added to my game.

I know that's not what the marketing folks say who write copy for selling rangefinders, but practically speaking I don't know how important they really are to average golfers.

If you compete, or are a good player and want to do everything to be as good as you can, obviously having accurate yardages is extremely important--I'm not saying the concept is wrong, it's definitely right.

But as a recreational player, I don't think they're worth the money.

As for speeding up play, that's tough to judge. On a course I know well, I know the yardages anyway, and the device either slows me down or doesn't change anything. I guess if you were playing on an unfamiliar course, and you wanted exact yardages for all your shots, the rangefinder is much faster than looking around for sprinkler heads.

Anyway, if you can, try before you buy.

I still choose a GPS over rangefinder because the constant eye to target procedure becomes combersome after a few holes.