Apple Watch GPS Apps

[J M Brown]

I've been looking at Garmin gps watches. My wife got an Apple Watch for Christmas and loves it. Does anyone have any experience with gps apps for the Apple Watch?

[Missouri Swede]

13 hours ago, J M Brown said:

I've been looking at Garmin gps watches. My wife got an Apple Watch for Christmas and loves it. Does anyone have any experience with gps apps for the Apple Watch?

GameGolf Live On my iPhone works well with my Apple Watch series 2. Starts up on the watch automatically as I start the iPhone app at the beginning of the round. It looks like it gives yardages from from the watch gps (not the phone gps), which is helpful when the course is cartpath only and I leave the iPhone in the cart. (Series 1 doesn’t have gps in the watch, so always uses the iPhone location.) IIRC it gives front, back and center of green.

I also tried the watch app with the iPhone Golfshot app. It works, but gives the yardage to center of green from the iPhone gps unless you shut off the Bluetooth on the iPhone after starting the round (which forces the watch app to look to the internal watch gps instead of defaulting to the phone). If you upgrade to the “Pro” version of the app ($30 a year) the watch app has more functions (records shots and clubs used, zoom in on targets, distances to hazards, layup distances, record score and putts on each hole). I don’t pay for the pro version, so I don’t know how easily they work. 

TLDR: I use the GameGolf watch app and it gives me green distances just fine. 

[Missouri Swede]

On 12/31/2017 at 10:55 AM, Missouri Swede said:

GameGolf Live On my iPhone works well with my Apple Watch series 2. Starts up on the watch automatically as I start the iPhone app at the beginning of the round. It looks like it gives yardages from from the watch gps (not the phone gps), which is helpful when the course is cartpath only and I leave the iPhone in the cart. (Series 1 doesn’t have gps in the watch, so always uses the iPhone location.) IIRC it gives front, back and center of green.

I also tried the watch app with the iPhone Golfshot app. It works, but gives the yardage to center of green from the iPhone gps unless you shut off the Bluetooth on the iPhone after starting the round (which forces the watch app to look to the internal watch gps instead of defaulting to the phone). If you upgrade to the “Pro” version of the app ($30 a year) the watch app has more functions (records shots and clubs used, zoom in on targets, distances to hazards, layup distances, record score and putts on each hole). I don’t pay for the pro version, so I don’t know how easily they work. 

TLDR: I use the GameGolf watch app and it gives me green distances just fine. 

Hmm. I may have to redact how the GameGolf watch app provides distances.  I had thought (based on previous observations) that it was reading the watch location.  I went out today near a local golf course to double check.  Leaving the watch in my (warm) car and heading out closer on foot, the yardage didn't budge, so it looks like it relies on the iPhone location (and not the watch gps, as I previously wrote).

[lastings]

I use The Grint app with my Apple Watch.   works quite well.  

[NM Golf]

Reviving this thread, I have it on good authority that my wife has gotten me a series 4 Apple Watch to replace my worn out series 1. I never liked any golf apps on the series 1 as it used the phone's GPS to determine distance. Does anyone out there use their series 3 or 4 Apple watch as a golf GPS? If so what apps work the best?