yardage finders

[drizz]

i want one but they all seem pricy . is there a big difference between cheaper ones and expensive? has anyone bought one and really liked it? i guess the main question is ..im a competitive player .i play national and international tournys im a feel player but want to know if really knowing my yardages is worth the money or should i stick to what im used to?

[Kahuna]

I own a Bushnell Yardage Pro Sport that I purchased for hunting about 6 years ago, and used it this past summer for a few rounds. It seemed extremely accurate, but without a body standing on the green, (preferably tending the pin) I had a hard time locking in the yardage. (Un-less the flag was blowing perpendicular to me, I was getting yardages from something beyond the green). Under these circumstances, for a distance to the flag I was usually able to get a accurate lock from approximately. 160 yards in.

[gas_can]

  drizz said:

i want one but they all seem pricy . is there a big difference between cheaper ones and expensive? has anyone bought one and really liked it? i guess the main question is ..im a competitive player .i play national and international tournys im a feel player but want to know if really knowing my yardages is worth the money or should i stick to what im used to?

drizz,

If you're playing off +1, you're obviously doing something right. What holds your game back now? If it's proximity from the pin, especially inside of 100 yards, a range finder will definitely help you. By far the best range finder on the market right now is Bushnell's Pinseeker. The Pinseeker technology displays only the shortest yardage, eliminating all background interference, so the difficulty you are having with shooting trees will be gone. Since you're a tournament player, I would definitely go for the one without the slope feature since that is illegal for tournament play. I love my pinseeker and feel naked without it, getting my yardage to the flag has become a part of my pre shot routine and has eliminated the need for yardage books, sprinkler heads, and other headaches from the past. The Nikon 500G and Busnell Yardage Pro Tour are also very effective, but not quite as reliable from far distances as the Pinseeker. They are also cheaper, smaller, lighter, and have better battery life than the Pinseeker. They are well worth looking into.

[SubPar]

Range finders really help you dial-in your mid and short irons. You can't work out the difference between 100 yard shot with a given club and a 105 yard shot if you don't know the distances exactly, on the course and at the range.

The GPS devices are good for those rare occasions when you can't see the flag but somehow imagne you can actaully hit the ball to it. The hand held range finders give you yardage to anything you can see on the course up to about 600 yards... slightly farther than I hit my driver. For tuning your swing for various distances, you would deem the range finder more useful than a GPS at the driving range where yardage markers are nototiously inaccurate. I guess the GPS device would be okay at the range as long as you are able and willing to run around the impact area collecting data.

[RX Phoenix]

i got the SkyCaddie to help sort out the shorter yardages, like is it 83 or 91 yards, 122 or 130, etc. It is especially effective when you are not right in the middle of the fairway, off in the rough, etc.

GPS device also doesn't rely on sighting flag, you can toggle pin to exact location that day and get updated yardage instantly. As well as getting yardage to front and back of green, and all bunker carries.

It is a huge advantage and being a +1 without one you could be scratch or better. Would you rather be 20' or 10' from the pin?

[drizz]

lol +1 is better than scratch haha... yeah thanks for the response i really want to test one out and see what happens

[J.P.]

drizz,

GasCan is right on. My pinseeker is instant yardage TO THE FLAG! I can also use it to see how far it is to clear that bunker in front. I suppose if you drive it very bad, you may not have a sight line to the flag, but I'm around 11/12 and have not encounterd such a problem on approach shots yet.

One thing that most people also forget about laser is that they magnify. The Pinseeker is a 7X magnify. This means you can actually have a much closer look at the green, its slope, contours, trouble etc. . . before the shot.

Try one! You won't let it go!