GolfPutt AR - Putt Measuring App for iOS 11

[iacas]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/golfputt-ar/id1289750170?ls=1&mt=8

It's gonna be awhile before I'm on a putting green (maybe this afternoon), but the author wrote and the app can be used free. For $1.99 you can disable ads.

[Lihu]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/golfputt-ar/id1289750170?ls=1&mt=8

It's gonna be awhile before I'm on a putting green (maybe this afternoon), but the author wrote and the app can be used free. For $1.99 you can disable ads.

Downloaded, because anything is better than whatever I'm doing now.

Thanks for posting this!

 

Edited October 6, 2017 by Lihu

[Club Rat]

Damn, it's not compatible with the 5s phones....  

[RandallT]

Tried the app out yesterday and it is a great way to calibrate yourself again. In my case, I've been using a guideline of each step is 3ft, minus about 10%, rounding down if needed.  For example, 5 steps is 15ft - 1.5ft, or 13.5ft, round down to 13ft.  I thought I had calibrated myself a while ago and that I was pretty accurate. Nope. Did my legs shrink or something?

Turns out I've been off by a foot for every 15ft of putts I've had. A 30ft putt was really only 28ft. So in all of my GAMEGOLF rounds, I was likely giving myself a small boost in my putting strokes gained. I thought putts were longer than they really were.

Anyway, as for the app, I thought it was very good. Barebones with no slow welcome screen, no help, no nothing. Open it up and nearly instantly, it wants you to point at a green to let it detect the surface.

I wasn't clear if I needed to include the fringe or the hole or something to get some sort of reference point. But I just pointed it downward as I walked around the hole. The app locked in on the green, no matter what I tried. So you don't need to include anything in the camera other than the green around you. I believe you do need to catch glimpses of the hole (but I could be wrong). That just seemed intuitive to point at the area you want to measure as you walk around.

After the app informs you that the green is detected, it directs you to mark the hole location. Every once in a while, as I was trying to mark the hole, the app would tell me that it couldn't detect the green anymore, but typically it would just detect it again quickly without me doing much. When you are ready, a cool digital flagstick would emerge from the hole when you clicked the button while pointing the camera at the hole (I was on a practice green with no flagsticks).

After that, you could mark many consecutive ball locations with that same hole, and all of the distances would be shown like in the screenshot below (the flagstick is cut off on the left, electronically generated where I marked the hole). When you're done, you just click the checkmark and start over on the next location you want to measure.

So twice out of about 15 tries, when I looked back at the hole location, it was slightly moved from the hole. You can see the offset above. That was likely human error, but I thought I had marked them all accurately. I believe it was most accurate when I stood over the whole looking directly downward before marking. If I marked the hole from a distance (like 5 or 6 ft away), the situation you see above could occur. Probably my error in rushing to learn the app. But my experience was that if I walked right up to the hole and marked from directly overhead, the hole was always spot on. Whether you need to get right over the hole, I don't think so, but when I try something out quickly, I tend to find a pattern that works and stick with it.

I mention this because as I recall, there weren't specific instructions how to mark the hole. It's pretty minimalist (which I appreciate). The app takes a try or two to get the hang of pressing the buttons for multiple balls (if you want to do that), and you're off and running.

I thought it was a great little tool: fast, intuitive, but worth playing with a few times to get the knack. Accurate too, as I spot-checked with a measuring tape.

If I had a long putt in a non-handicap/non-competition round, I might pull a phone out of my pocket to fire this up and measure the hole, as I paced it off manually (mostly for curiosity). The app loads quickly, so it really does not add much time at all to get the app to detect the green and mark the hole. Doubt it would hold up the pace of play. For medium and short putts, I'm still likely going to use my own eyes and feet (even if they've been recalibrated using this!).